Happy Equinox! I thought it would be nice to send out an Ayurvedic guide for transitioning from winter to spring. My Slow Sundays will be starting up again from the first Sunday in April and will be monthly. Here’s a few warm words followed by the Ayurvedic spring guide.

Warm words for weary minds

Two glorious days of sunshine, people in t-shirts and shorts, bicycles making shadows, the harbour full of rippling water glistening in the sun. Happy people.

We seem to be moving from winter into spring over here in the UK. Down by the harbour people all ages, busker with strong passionate voice serenading us, warm sun, laughter, beers and squashes with piles of ice, seagulls and chatter. Late in the day and that sun starts sinking, but cobbles still lit up and harbour waters glistening. Good to be alive vibe, the world of harsh realities momentarily rests on this tiny piece of the planet. A warm blink in peoples lives.

That sun warm on my forehead while my heart is mellow from the sound of humanity all around. A kaleidoscope, trickles of patch-worked humanness of absolute gorgeousness. This is what the sun brings to the UK cities after a long winter of grey and rain. How happy am I for the sun. Before it goes down I sit face tilted towards the busker and sun eyes closed, drinking in the piano man vocals through ears

“Sing us a song, you’re the piano man

Sing us a song tonight

Well, we’re all in the mood for a melody

And you’ve got us feeling alright”: Billy Joel and a nameless busker

and the sun through my skin.

Warm.

Sunny.

Happy.

Love humanity.

Mud between cobbles damp, new grass growing through in patches. Harbour waters still glistening look like liquid glass. Then slowly, slowly, the sun drifts down behind a building, the singing stops, and a different world starts to paint its way into being. Off I wander onto a sunny pathway, where shadows play, singing “where will i wander I wonder” :In search of the rose by the Waterboys, inside my head.

Ayurveda Spring Guidance

The spring season is a time when Kapha dosha can easily shift out of balance, with the heavier winter energies trapped in our system. This can cause us to feel heavy physically and/or emotionally and psychologically. And so the transition from winter to spring, is the time to clear out these heavier energies that have built up within our system over the winter, including old emotions; so that we can move into the spring and summer feeling lighter. The following tips will help you navigate the change from winter to spring.

Best tastes & foods

The tastes to start having more of include bitter, astringent and pungent. Freshly grated ginger, and the bitter leaves that you will soon be able to forage - wild garlic, nettles, cleavers and dandelion leaves/root - are very good to eat at this time of year.

Wild garlic starting to come through in the woods

Make a juice out of the dandelion leaves (recipe further on), this will be great for cleansing the blood and gives a real boost to the system. Use the top few inches of nettles before they go to seed to make fresh nettle tea, and also combine them fresh with cleavers to make a tonic (recipe further on). The wild garlic can be sautéed, steamed with other green vegetables, or use it to make an incredibly vibrant pesto that cleanses and boosts the system, this can be combined with polenta, added after the polenta has cooked for a bright green dish.

The bitter roots of burdock and dandelion are good in soups; they cleanse the liver.

Nature provides Leafy greens, sprouts and berries at this time of year because they help the body to detox after the winter, so when these foods become part of your regular diet, they are supporting you to transition from winter to spring. If you have a vata imbalance weave them in carefully.

It is better to minimize dairy and red meat during this season, while maximizing green vegetables, lean white chicken for meat, fish and legumes.

Recipes

NETTLE & CLEAVER TONIC

INGREDIENTS

Fresh nettles that have not gone to seed

Fresh cleavers

METHOD

Cram a large glass jar (about two litres, the above photo was a small version) with the freshly picked nettles and cleavers (50-50). Cover with boiling water and leave over night. Make sure the jar is really packed full of nettles and cleavers. The next day pour the liquid through a sieve. Pop in the fridge it will keep for about 3 or 4 days, drink a small glass every day. I know a forager who swears that if his wife who suffers from hay fever, makes this just at the beginning of spring using mostly nettles she doesn’t get hay fever.

DANDELION JUICE

INGREDIENTS

About three cups of roughly chopped dandelion leaves

1/2 apple

2 cups water

METHOD

Blitz the dandelion leaves in the water and sieve. Then blend them with half a cored apple. Drink this each day for a couple of weeks to feel the difference.

Lifestyle tips

Here’s an Ayurvedic daily routine you may like to dip into. We all have habits and some of them don’t help us to feel well, so here are some Ayurvedic lifestyle suggestions:

• Up pre-dawn or just before 6 am.

• Clean teeth and scrape tongue.

• Mug of hot water and freshly squeezed lemon.

• Barefoot walk on the land for 30 minutes.

• Yoga routine even if just a couple of rounds of Sun Salutation (begin with one then add another each day until you reach the amount that feels right for you.

• Dry skin brushing followed by shower ( twice a week carry out abhyanga using a light oil like safflower (Vata types fine with sesame, pitta types fine with coconut) after the dry skin brushing.

• Light breakfast of stewed apple with spices or porridge around 7 am (vata types have some protein too).

• Main meal of stew or grain bowl around midday.

• Light supper of soup, especially green spring vegetables around 5.30 ish.

• Drink herbal teas, fresh nettle tea is very good—stay hydrated with warm water or herbal teas.

• Drink a small glass of nettle & cleaver tonic each day for a few weeks.

• Drink a small glass of dandelion and apple juice each day for a few weeks.

• Feed your senses with warmth—colours, sounds, tastes, smells and warm cosy clothes if there is still a chill in the air.

• Unwind for an hour before bed without screens including TV and phone, just relaxing to candlelight or other low level lighting, reading something peaceful or spiritually nourishing, or listening to relaxing music, then bed to fall asleep just before 10 pm.

Ayurvedic Spring Cleanse

For Ayurveda a regular rhythm of cleanses is an important way to take care of our health, allowing for any waste/toxicity that has accumulated in the body and mind, to be cleared.

An Ayurvedic cleanse is usually undertaken at the change of the seasons, summer to autumn and winter to spring, or when you are feeling under par.

Ayurveda suggests that to get the most out of your cleanse you should carry out three stages: pre-cleanse, active cleanse, post-cleanse. The pre-cleanse and active cleanse stages last the same amount of time while the post-cleanse lasts longer. If your active cleanse is 3 days, you’d also spend 3 days on the pre-cleanse and about 6 days to 2 months on the post-cleanse which has two parts to it, reintroduction and regeneration. The entire cleanse supports the removal of toxins/heaviness from your system and aims to balance your constitution. The time to carry it out is once the spring weather starts arriving.

On this cleanse you get to eat! It’s a dish called Kitchari, India’s number one comfort food. This nutritious, nourishing, gently cleansing dish is made from basmati rice and split mung dahl with a few spices added to it and some vegetables can be too.

People sometimes mistake the split mung dahl for the red lentil, or yellow split peas, both of which can upset some people’s digestion. So it’s important you buy the split mung dahl (the green mung bean that has it’s green outer layer removed which is then split, becoming a little yellow dahl). If you can’t source this dahl use mung beans.

NB: If you feel weak while carrying out the active stage, cut down the amount of days for this stage. If you have any health concerns consult your doctor.

Pre-cleanse

These first three days involve eating a simplified diet that is sattvic (explained further on), swapping processed sugar for fruit, avoiding alcohol, and if you are able to without experiencing cold turkey, avoiding caffeine. If that is a challenge, swap caffeine drinks and coffee for small sips of green tea throughout the day—make a flask of green tea and sip when needed, making sure most of your day is spent drinking herbal tea—drinking lots of warm herbal teas are important to help with the cleansing process.

Sattvic food is light, fresh, energising, vitalising and balancing; it brings clarity to your mind, peace to your emotions and energy to your body. Sattvic foods are pure, whole, organic, fresh and plant based. They are healing foods, they keep you alert, give you a clear, balanced mind and support a healthy body—sattvic foods promote longevity, health, strength and cheerfulness.

Sattvic foods are lacto-vegetarian: fresh fruits, some vegetables, dairy, pulses, grains, raw (unpasteurized) honey, cereals and nuts. Sattvic spices include: cardamom, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, fennel, fenugreek, fresh ginger and turmeric. Meat is avoided along with certain vegetables: onions, garlic and the deadly nightshade family—tomatoes, potatoes, aubergines, peppers. Pickles and hot spices are also avoided, along with strongly salty and sour tastes.

When you get up drink a mug of hot water with 1 teaspoon of ghee in it and wait at least 20 minutes before eating breakfast. Eat your main meal at lunchtime, second largest meal for breakfast and lightest meal for supper.

Active Cleanse

It is good to carry out the active cleanse during 3 days when you can rest and let the cleanse do it’s work. It’s possible you will release emotional toxins - disturbed emotions that were stuck in the cells of your body. Dr Candice Pert, whose work brought recognition to a new field of science called psychoneuroimmunology, has shown that our organs, tissues, skin, muscle and endocrine glands can all store emotion.

While actively cleansing you need to be gentle with yourself. If you have a yoga practice, focus on restorative postures carried out in a slow and rhythmic way. You need to focus on asanas that support detoxification and increase digestion. Gentle twists can support detoxification of the digestive tract, spine and vital organs, as well as strengthening digestion. Many of the reclining postures that open the solar plexus area are very supportive during your cleanse since this is an area of the body where we often hold tension. Gentle inversion postures like shoulder stand can help to flush out toxins, improve blood flow and promote overall rejuvenation—a headstand would be too strong for this gentle home cleanse.

Throughout the 3 days of the active stage you’ll be giving yourself a massage first thing before breakfast, it’s called Abhyanga, and details of how to do this are further in on. This massage is a lovely way to soothe your mind, nourish your heart and feed the healthy bacteria on your skin, which protect you from unhealthy pathogens. Abhyanga also soothes the nervous system.

You’ll be eating Kitchari, recipe further on, for breakfast, lunch and supper. Some of the ingredients in Kitchari, for instance the mung bean and cilantro, have chelating properties taking toxins that are in your digestive tract out of your body.

If you prefer not to eat Kitchari for breakfast, eat stewed apples with cardamon, cinnamon and a little ghee, or a basic porridge.

Here’s a routine you could follow for the active stage, based on the Ayurvedic daily lifestyle advice above:

• Wake just before sunrise

• Drink herbal tea, or a mug of hot water with fresh lemon in it.

• Carry out self-massage (Abhyanga, explained further on) then have a warm steamy bath (shower if you don’t have one) followed by some gentle exercise

• Eat Kitchari for breakfast, or if you prefer stewed apples/porridge with a little ghee, cinnamon and cardamom

• Have a relaxing morning doing things you enjoy that are restful

• Eat your largest bowl of Kitchari for lunch between 12 noon and 1 pm

• In the afternoon spend time in nature in a relaxed way

• In the evening have your Kitchari supper around 5 pm to 6 pm

• Relax the evening away doing sattvic things—relaxing, drinking in balance, harmony and beauty through your senses

• No technology if possible

• Drink herbal teas throughout the day

• Asleep by 10 pm

Post-cleanse

This part of the cleanse has two parts, gradual reintroduction of the things you normally consume for the same amount of time as the active stage, and rejuvenation where you will be including rejuvenative foods (listed below) in your diet for a few days to a few weeks or even a few months depending on how long the active stage was.

For instance, for a cleanse of 3 active stage days, you can spend longer than 3 days on the rejuvenation stage of the cleanse if you would like to, perhaps up to 3 months rejuvenating, it depends on your constitutional needs. This is something you need to discuss with an Ayurvedic coach or feel intuitively into yourself.

The reason you reintroduce foods, drinks and life experiences gradually is because if you hit your system with caffeine, alcohol, processed sugar, processed foods or some life experiences too quickly, your mind and body may struggle to cope.

Rejuvenating foods

Rejuvenating foods and herbs (called rasayanas) include: dates, figs, almonds, ghee, organic milk taken warm, mung beans, whole grains, chyawanprash (Ayurvedic medicinal jam), fresh vegetables for your dosha needs, turmeric, ginger, fennel, saffron, cardamom, cumin.

Kitchari recipe

Ingredients

½ a cup of basmati rice

½ a cup of split mung dahl (soaked for a few hours or over night)

1 teaspoon ground coriander seed

½ teaspoon ground cumin seed

½ teaspoon ground fennel seed

1 teaspoon turmeric powder

1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger root

Rock salt

Black pepper

Freshly squeezed lemon

Ghee

Cilantro

8 cups of water

Method

Saute the spices in 1 tablespoon of ghee then add the soaked split mung dahl, rice and water. Simmer until the water has absorbed and the mixture is cooked. Experiment with the amount of water, beginning with 6 cups then adding more if needed. The amount needed changes depending on how long the dahl was soaked for, and whether you like a dryer kitchari texture or a brothy one. Once it is cooked season to your tastes with the rock salt and black pepper, add some more ghee (1-2 teaspoons) and sprinkle with the cilantro. You could also use spring green leaves in this kitchiri.

NB: If you feel ungrounded, tired, spaced-out and overly sensitive you may need to cut the active stage of this cleanse short, consume some grounding meat/fish meals and eat some rejuvenating foods.

Contraindications

• When you are pregnant or breast-feeding.

• When you are menstruating.

• When you are debilitated and in need of rejuvenation a cleanse can be weakening, in this instance, you could combine the one-day digestive reset with a rejuvenation programme, if you were able to rest on the reset day.

• When there are high levels of toxicity, a staged approach under the guidance of a qualified Ayurvedic practitioner is needed.

• When you are under medical supervision or in need of medical advice, check with your doctor before carrying out a cleanse.

Abhyanga

Abhyanga is a form of massage that involves applying good amounts of oil to your body before getting into a a steam tent or warm steamy bath/shower. Vata types use sesame oil, Pitta types use coconut oil, Kapha types use safflower oil.

This massage grounds the nervous system, feeds the healthy bacteria on your skin, supports the sense of touch and brings warmth and stability into your body and mind.

Place about ½ cup of oil in a jar and place this in a bowl of hot water to warm it up. Next, in a warm bathroom, coat yourself from head to in the oil. Beginning at your feet and working up towards your heart. Then from your head down towards your heart, and your hands to your shoulders. Use long strokes on limbs and back, circular strokes on joints, and gently work in a clockwise direction on your abdomen. The aim is to always work towards your heart.

Benefits

Abhyanga nourishes the entire body and keeps it youthful, lubricates the joints, increases circulation, gets the lymph moving calms the nerves, increases stamina supports a good sleep, softens the skin, pacifies vata and pitta dosha’s, stimulates kapha dosha.

Contraindications

Don’t use this practice if you have an infection, perforated ear drum or other injury to the ear, if there is blood coming from the ear, on children under 5 years old, directly after a shower or swimming, and avoid carrying out this self-care therapy after eating, when you have indigestion, if you are pregnant, during menstruation, when you have a fever, if you know you have a lot of toxins in your system, if you have received an enema, if you feel nauseous or are vomiting, over broken or infected skin, or when you have any medical condition without the okay from your doctor.

So that’s been a short Ayurvedic guide for transitioning from winter to spring. I hope you have found it useful, let me know in the comments if you have any questions, whether there were any daily tips you thought you would try out, and if you have carried out an Ayurvedic cleanse before.

Sun on the harbour water

Wishing you the warmest,

Lucy x

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

This is what the early morning sunrise shared with me yesterday morning.

I’ve just finished writing the “Ayurveda for Grief” eBook which will be on sale soon, but I thought I’d share the content with my paying subscribers first. I share a little with everyone in case you would like to support my work and have access to my books as I write them.

I’m also starting up a monthly Ayurvedic Q&A for my paying subscribers, the first one will be on Friday 24th January at 5pm GMT, unless there are people who would like to attend from other parts of the world. And so, paying subscribers, if you would like me to send you a link to the Q&A let me know, and if you would prefer a different time let me know.

I’m not sure why I began my eBook series with Ayurveda for grief, but it kind of wrote itself. I’m going to be working with an organisation who supports leaders and one of the areas that came up last year was grief—unfortunately the suicide rate has been increasing, especially for young people. And so, this short pragmatic eBook, was a response to those left behind.

Ayurveda for Grief

Ayurveda & Grief

Becoming whole again

Introduction

If you have found your way to this book through losing someone close, my heartfelt care is here for you. Grief can come in many packages but one thing they all have in common, is a broken heart.

Prolonged grief can also trigger depression, anxiety, trauma, as well as impact physical health and immunity. Ayurveda, can address all of these things, and so I am writing this book to connect you with Ayurveda. This ebook is an overview of how Ayurveda can help, and accompany you on your journey.

When you follow an Ayurvedic approach to self-care, things always change for the better. If you are in a place of utter darkness, Ayurveda can hold your beautiful hand along the way to feeling whole again; through gentle, consistent self-care strategies.

I’m not suggesting you follow or engage with everything in this little book immediately, especially if you are at the beginning of your journey. I’m just giving a map, for when you’re ready. You might dip in and out. And then again, you might just decide this is exactly what you would like to do all the way through.

Ayurveda

Ayurveda came from ancient India, a civilisation where people come together in community to support anyone moving through grief, no one is left on their own. In the West there is often a focus on individual coping, and that can block the movement of grief—we get stuck. It can be a very lonely place to find yourself. My hope is that by reading this short ebook, you will come together with others in small groups to practice Ayurveda, to support yourself and each other, to feel whole again.

If you follow these simple self-care practices, slowly getting to know them, one tiny step at a time, supported by a group of fellow travellers; I promise you things will improve. It won’t happen overnight, but there will be a turning point when you are able to hold the pain in the palm of one hand, while your heart starts to glimmer in the other. Eventually your heart will be glowing so brightly again, that the pain will no longer scare or numb you.

Let’s begin

What is Ayurveda?

Ayurveda is a nature-based, holistic approach to health that comes from ancient India, which explains there are different body types; with each needing slightly different approaches to food and life. Our body type defines our biological constitution. Living in balance with this and the world around us, is where health comes from, and the different constitutional balances influence reactions to loss. This means that understanding your constitutional type can help you navigate grief.

Nutrition and nourishment through food and the senses is how Ayurveda supports our physical, emotional and mental wellness. Ayurveda has always been about more than the food we eat, it includes what we are taking in through all our senses; what we are feeding our mind through our experiences, and the environments we are part of. Food is important, it builds our body; while experiences build our mind. The Ayurvedic approach to grief builds a journey of self care that combines both.

An Ayurvedic plan includes food, exercise, sleep and lifestyle protocols, for your particular constitution, and point in life. It meets you, exactly where you are. Ayurveda is about self-care, as the basis for wellness and wellbeing.

Ayurveda & grief

Ayurveda explains that when we experience grief the connection between our heart and mind is broken. This needs to be restored through a gentle daily routine that builds trust again, at a biological as well as emotional and mental level. The three cannot be disconnected.

The Ayurvedic view of grief is that we are consuming an experience that puts us out of balance. It impacts our nervous system, our capacity to digest life and often food too, becomes impaired and our life force, ‘ojas’, is severely knocked.

You need to take a gentle approach to addressing these things, at a time when you probably couldn’t care less about self-care.

Let Ayurveda take your hand, to support you as you move through the grieving process, perhaps in the company of others who are experiencing grief too, as you travel a gentle journey to restore your life force, regulate your nervous system, nourish your ability to digest, and return to balance.

People say this approach has restored their faith in life, in themselves, in those around them and more importantly, they no longer felt so alone all of the time.

And, it takes time.

How Ayurveda helps

Ayurveda helps you to restore your inner balance. This involves slowing down and establishing a daily restorative self-care routine that includes warming foods, abhyanga (self-massage), restorative yoga, a few other Ayurvedic therapies, and living to your natural rhythms in harmony with the rhythms of the natural world.

Self-care

Self-care is crucial for moving through grief, this short ebook is meant to be a gentle journey into how Ayurveda can help you, at whatever pace is right for you. It isn’t intended to replace grief counselling or any other help you have, rather, the ideas you will meet further on, are a supplement, to introduce you to the powerhouse of ancient healing knowledge that is Ayurveda.

There are 7 protocols I use when I work with people and groups that i’ll introduce you to. It can feel like a lot, to begin with its just about playing, to get to know the steps.

Western culture so often causes us to think that we must achieve the ticks on a check list in a certain amount of time. But after decades of holding space for people, I know it doesn’t work like that. I know that the person in front of me, is the best person to know how long the journey will be. And so, in this small ebook, I simply share the map.

The protocols

Read more

I am writing a series of ebooks about Ayurveda. This is a mini series, and each short ebook will introduce you to how Ayurveda can help you heal in different situations, starting off with grief.

I’ll be explaining in each short ebook the Ayurvedic view—in this first one that is in relation to grief—then giving an overview of how you can take care of yourself with Ayurveda in relation to this.

And so, I thought it would be nice if I shared what I’m doing as I do it—you’ll get to see my books in progress, before they are published.

I’m sharing this first instalment with everyone, but future instillments will be for my paying subscribers—I’m hopefully enticing you to become a paying subscriber!

This will be a 10-15 mini ebooks in the series, and once written I will be offering a Q&A once a month for paying subscribers who would like support with Ayurveda.

And so, without further ado, here is the first piece of writing for the Ayurveda & Grief ebook.

Ayurveda & Grief

Becoming whole again

Introduction

If you have found your way to this book through losing someone close, my heartfelt care is here for you. Grief can come in many packages but one thing they all have in common, is a broken heart.

Prolonged grief can also trigger depression, anxiety, trauma, as well as impact physical health and immunity. Ayurveda, can address all of these things, and so I am writing this book to connect you with Ayurveda. This is an overview of how Ayurveda can help, and accompany you on a journey to feeling better again.

Ayurveda isn’t a quick fix, but if you follow an Ayurvedic approach to self-care, things always change for the better. If you are in a place of utter darkness, Ayurveda can hold your beautiful hand along the way to feeling whole again, through gentle, consistent self-care strategies.

Ayurveda

Ayurveda came from ancient India, a civilisation where people come together in community to support anyone moving through grief, no one is left on their own. In the West there is often a focus on individual coping, and that can block the movement of grief—we get stuck. It can be a very lonely place to find yourself. My hope is that by reading this short ebook, you will come together with others in small groups to practice Ayurveda, to support yourself and each other, to feel whole again.

If you follow these simple self-care practices, slowly getting to know them, one tiny step at a time, supported by a group of fellow travellers; I promise you things will improve. It won’t happen overnight, but there will be a turning point when you are able to hold the pain in the palm of one hand, while your heart starts to glimmer in the other. Eventually your heart will be glowing so brightly again, that the pain will no longer scare or numb you.

Let’s begin

What is Ayurveda?

Ayurveda is a nature-based, holistic approach to health that comes from ancient India, which explains there are different body types; with each needing slightly different approaches to food and life. Our body type defines our biological constitution. Living in balance with this and the world around us, is where health comes from, and the different constitutional balances influence reactions to loss. This means that understanding your constitutional type can help you navigate grief.

Nutrition and nourishment through food and the senses is how Ayurveda supports our physical, emotional and mental wellness.

Ayurveda has always been about more than the food we eat, it includes what we are taking in through all our senses; what we are feeding our mind through our experiences, and the environments we are part of. Food is important, it builds our body; while experiences build our mind. The Ayurvedic approach to grief builds a journey of self care that combines both.

An Ayurvedic plan includes food, exercise, sleep and lifestyle protocols, for your particular constitution, and point in life. It meets you, exactly where you are. Ayurveda is about self-care, as the basis for wellness and wellbeing.

Ayurveda & grief

Ayurveda explains that when we experience grief the connection between our heart and mind is broken. This needs to be restored through a gentle daily routine that builds trust again, at a biological as well as emotional and mental level. The three cannot be disconnected.

The Ayurvedic view of grief is that we are consuming an experience that puts us out of balance. It impacts our nervous system, our capacity to digest life, and often food too, becomes impaired and our life force, ‘ojas’ is severely knocked.

You need to take a gentle approach to addressing these things, at a time when you probably couldn’t care less about self-care.

Let Ayurveda take your hand, to support you as you move through the grieving process, perhaps in the company of others who are experiencing grief too, as you travel a gentle journey to restore your life force, regulate your nervous system, nourish your ability to digest, and return to balance.

People say this approach has restored their faith in life, in themselves, in those around them and more importantly, they no longer felt so alone all of the time.

And, it takes time.

How Ayurveda helps

Ayurveda helps you to restore your inner balance. This involves slowing down and establishing a daily restorative self-care routine that includes warming foods, abhyanga (self-massage), restorative yoga, a few other Ayurvedic therapies, breath work, and living to your natural rhythms in harmony with the rhythms of the natural world.

Self-care

Self-care is crucial to moving through grief, this short ebook is meant to be a gentle journey into how Ayurveda can help you, at whatever pace is right for you. It isn’t intended to replace grief counselling or any other help you have, rather, the ideas you will meet further on, are a supplement, to introduce you to the powerhouse of ancient healing knowledge that is Ayurveda.

There are 7 practices I will introduce you to, and it may feel like a lot, but the way I work with people and groups, allows each of these practices to seamlessly become a part of their life, and I can share that with you too.

The Practices

1. Living in balance with your biological rhythms.

2. Restoring your constitutional balance through simple food and lifestyle protocols.

3. Restoring the balance of the Gunas—subtle energies that when out of balance can lead to restlessness, anxiety, lethargy and losing the will to live and to love.

4. Taking care of digestion so that your cells can turn your food into energy to support tissue nourishment and every process in your body, including the processing of grief.

5. Restoring Ojas so that you experience the the vitality of life again.

6. Clearing any congestion in your lymphatic system which can occur if emotional trauma has become stuck.

7. Ayurvedic therapies for deep nourishment.

Before beginning

A few things to know before beginning:

• It’s okay not to be okay.

• It’s okay to begin, stop, backtrack, start again.

• It’s okay to feel whatever you’re feeling.

• It’s okay not to be feeling anything.

• It’s okay to cry.

• It’s okay not to cry.

• However it is for you, that’s okay.

Grief is not linear and their is no judgement on how you travel your journey. Grief can profoundly impact your sense of identity and, the grief of different people cannot be compared. It’s a personal journey where kindness to yourself is so important, without judgement, especially if you meet dark places. The self-care habits Ayurveda offers give your identity safe harbour, while nourishing your mind, emotions and body.

The next instalment for my paying subscribers will come in the new year, I hope you’ll feel you would like to join me on this journey into Ayurveda, as a paying subscriber, but if you don’t, I will still be writing my Slow Sundays for everyone.

Wishing you the warmest,

Lucy x

Share

Leave a comment

Today, it was dark when I got up. As the light came into the sky I saw grey skies, deep charcoal colours and then, as more light arrived I saw the trees in the street still had lots of leaves on them, more than usual for October, blowing all over the place. There were some big flat copper and golden ones on the wet tarmac, and even though I was inside, I could feel the wet roads and damp air.

Across the road, there’s a tree with leaves turned lemon; I thought soon they’ll be falling. Just then gusts of leaves started to be blown about. Swirls of them spinning through the wet air, spiralling across the street.

Today, autumn has properly arrived.

Raindrops on the window, when I turn my head they light up, shimmer as they fall down. The street silent, no one up that I can see. Empty street and blowing trees. Curtains drawn, this dawn.

Down in the mud, worms wiggle, The fox left a token on the garden path and the leaves rush past this as I collect leaves from grass, leaving the ones on the soil to get rotted down by tiny creatures.

It’s hibernation time. Damp, wet, grey, gusty and, if you like living in tune with the seasons, cosy.

I haven’t always like it, summer; my happy time of year. I would feel dread as the evenings drew in, anxiety growing in the pit of my stomach as day turned to night, so early in what I felt should still be the day. My bones wanting to collapse into a heap of, oh no, not again. That is, until I discovered Ayurveda, and learnt that autumn is Vata season, and that this dosha within us can easily go out of balance when autumn arrives, especially if you have a lot of vata making up your constitution, which I have.

One of the symptoms of vata imbalance is anxiousness. When I started applying the remedies to balance vata dosha, autumn became a cosy time. Autumn is a time for going inside yourself, like the plants and leaves that die and go back into the soil.

So today, I can feel the autumn outside; inside me, and I known that next year summer will come again. And, I’m okay with that. How about you, do you enjoy the autumn season or prefer another one, perhaps you’ll tell me in the comments.

Anyway, today is a wet road day and later, when it’s dark I shall go for a walk around the city to see what colourful gems I can find.

Photo by Pexels on Pixabay

Joy dots

Ayurveda

I’ve been reading a great book called “Good Energy” by Dr. Casey Means, about how all the different chronic disease problems we have in our culture, both physical and mental, are due to one thing, the breakdown of our metabolic health due to many different things within Western culture. Fantastic read I highly recommend it. The thing I love about it is that she is talking about something Ayurveda understood 5000 years ago.

Everything that Ayurveda recommends, is to ensure that we have good metabolic health so that our cells can function properly. In fact it went further by understanding that people with different constitutions need to take slightly different approaches to food and lifestyle protocols, in order for them to be able to have good metabolic health. This is why Ayurveda is such a great preventative approach to health. Here’s a link to the first of my Ayurveda shorts about how the ‘dosha’s create the different constitutions.

Recipe

Lots of green veg soup

I’ve been doing my autumn Ayurvedic cleanse, and this soup is great for part of the pre-cleanse. I sautéd celery and onion in ghee, added courgette, green beans, leek, peas and chard, plus stock and a little bit of wholewheat pasta, then sautéd. Once cooked I seasoned with freshly ground coriander, black pepper and salt, and fresh lime juice. It was warming, cosy and comforting.

Wishing you the best Autumn.

Photo by Castleguard — Pixabay

And, wishing you the warmest,

Lucy x

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Welcome to this weeks Ayurveda ‘short’. Over the last few weeks I have been talking about the concept of the doshas of vata, pitta and kapha. Explaining that these are bio energies that form our constitution and allow for certain processes to take place.

When the doshas within our constitution start moving out of balance, this starts to create the conditions where the symptoms of dis-ease will develop that leads, over time, to illness and the destruction of our body’s innate intelligence – digestion, immunity, cell functions, purification systems.

This week I’m offering a few tips on how to rebalance vata dosha. You can read about the imbalance symptoms of vata dosha here.

Vata balancing tips

Slow down (you need to calm the wind energy that makes up vata dosha along with ether energy), take time to be still and quiet, keep warm, go into nature and bring a gentle rhythm back into your life, eat regular meals to balance vata dosha, favour the sweet salty and sour tastes, bring qualities into your life that are the opposite of vata like stillness, stability, softness, regularity, warmth, moisture and smoothness, carry out abhyanga (self-massage) each day followed by a warm relaxing steamy bath or shower, surround yourself with warmth and nourishment.

Eat more foods with these qualities: warm, nourishing, moist, oily, smooth, grounding, dense, protein rich, and soupy; eat some tamasic food (meat/fish); get your sweet taste from grains like wheat, spelt, quinoa, rice, oats; from dairy; from soft, sweet, moist fruits e.g. fresh dates, fresh figs, mango, ripe bananas; sweeteners include raw honey, maple syrup, molasses, barley malt. Keep to regular mealtimes.

Eat less (avoid altogether if vata dosha is showing signs of imbalance): raw, cold, dry, hard, light food.

Have more of these tastes: sweet, salty, and sour.

Best oils to consume: sesame, ghee, hemp, olive.

Most spices are good for vata dosha, but fenugreek needs to be used sparingly and the chilli spices.

Limit (avoid altogether if vata dosha is showing signs of imbalance): caffeine, carbonated drinks, foods that are cold, dry, hard, raw; missing meals; eating on the run.

I hope that is helpful to you. I will, in the not to distant future, be offering menu plans and home retreat options for each of the dosha imbalances for my paid subscribers, as well as a monthly Q&A. If Ayurveda is something you would like to include in your life with personalised support, it is just £4.99 per month. A great option for anyone who would like to try Ayurveda out before investing in a one to one. In fact this is how I healed my 15 years of digestive issues in 3 months, at a time when I could not afford alternative health options.

If you enjoy these Ayurveda ‘shorts’ a like will let me know to carry on!

Warmest wishes,

Lucy x

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

In last weeks Ayurveda ‘short’ I talked about pitta dosha out of balance. This week we’re taking a look at kapha dosha when it is out of balance. Next week I will give some pointers for bringing each of the doshas into balance. In case you missed the earlier Ayurveda ‘shorts’, they began here and at the end of each post there is a next link.

Kapha

When kapha is in balance in a kapha type they will be loyal, caring, calm, thoughtful, loving, strong, compassionate, patient, steady, supportive, have a strong build, good stamina, smooth radiant skin, regular digestion, sleep well and enjoy routine.

When kapha is out of balance in any of us we can feel lethargic, apathetic, foggy, heavy, dull, flat, depressed and unmotivated. We can be sentimental, resistant to change, stubborn, possessive, clingy, have sluggish bowel movements, eat more, sleep more, and there will often be increased mucus and a thick white coating on the tongue. We will find it difficult getting out of bed in the morning, become over-weight or put on weight and find it difficult to lose. There will be increased secretions, paleness, and heavy limbs. Diseases usually involve phlegm, dampness, excessive tissue growth, with diabetes and asthma potentially developing. All due to too much water and earth elemental qualities building in the body.

While a reactive tendency when stressed for vata dosha out of balance is ‘What did I do wrong?” and for a pitta dosha out of balance “What did you do wrong?” the kapha dosha out of balance response is “I don’t want to deal with it.”.

I look forward to sharing some tips next week on how to bring each dosha back into balance.

If you enjoy these Ayurveda ‘shorts’ a like will let me know to carry on!

Warmest wishes,

Lucy x

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

In last weeks Ayyrveda ‘short’ I talked about vata dosha out of balance. This week we’re taking a look at Pitta Dosha when it is out of balance. This weeks and next weeks shorts are very, well, short!

Pitta

When Pitta is in balance within a pitta type who is in balance; they usually have very good digestion and appetite, lots of energy, they sleep well, their body temperature is warm, they have a shining complexion, strong intellect, can focus really well, are good at making decisions, great speakers. They are precise, direct and sharp-witted.

When pitta dosha is out of balance in any of us we become impatient, frustrated, irritable, jealous, angry, resentful, judgmental, perfectionist, driven, overly ambitious. We can develop an insatiable hunger/thirst, suffer from indigestion and acid reflux, heartburn, infections, hormonal imbalance, hot flushes, bleeding, ulcers, yellowing of eyes, inflammation, inflamed skin, rashes, hot itchy skin, oiliness, loose stools, excessive body heat, red inflamed eyes, light sensitivity. Diseases are related to too much heat in the body. A reactive tendency when stressed ‘what did you do wrong?’.

Next week I will outline the kapha imbalance systems, then the following week I will offer some ways in which you can balance each of the doshas.

If you enjoy these Ayurveda ‘shorts’ a like will let me know to carry on!

Warmest wishes,

Lucy x

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Welcome to this weeks 2-minute read. I’m continuing to talk about the doshas. You can find the first Ayurveda ‘short’ on the doshas here and the second here.

Doshas

In the last two Ayurveda ‘shorts’ I have been looking at the doshas of vata, pitta, and kapha, how they are three aspects of natural intelligence that govern our body, allowing for all biological processes to take place – every physical, mental and emotional process within the body is controlled by these energies.

Each of us has a unique ratio of them which forms our constitution, determining how we look, our emotional and psychological tendencies, and our behaviour. The doshas show how the 5 elements determine who we are – our body frame, our temperament, our stress response, our health and wellbeing needs.

When you understand your balance of the doshas and can recognise when any are shifting out of balance, you can choose to live in balance with your nature, and correct any imbalances as you notice them. To begin with, the symptoms will be mild – stages 1/2 of the 6-stage disease model, and relatively easy to correct.

Balance

Balance and harmony are central to the Ayurvedic view of health and disease. When the balance of the doshas that you were born with – your constitution/nature – moves out of balance you are creating the ground for disease. Imbalanced diet, wrong health and life choices and seasonal changes, all have a big influence on your doshic balance.

Understanding the doshic balance of your constitution, recognising when any of the doshas are moving out of balance and knowing the remedies to apply, gives you an important foundation for creating an Ayurvedic preventative healthcare plan.

Vata

When vata dosha is in balance within a vata type who is in balance, you’ll find an energetic personality, flexibility, creativity, they’ll be a lively communicator, take the initiative easily, love excitement and new experiences, they will be quick to anger and quick to forgive.

When vata dosha is out of balance in any of us we start to feel nervous, fearful, anxious, develop twitches, tremors, tics and spasms, there can be body stiffness and muscle pain that comes and goes, dry or chapped skin, low body weight, gas, bloating, constipation, light or interrupted sleep, tingling in hands or feet, sensitivity to loud noises, we will struggle with cold and wind, become dehydrated, our mind starts to race, there can be excessive talking, life begins to feel out of control, we can feel overwhelmed, and start to skip meals. Diseases usually involve pain or debility, dryness, cold, wasting of tissues and anything to do with the nervous system. A reactive tendency when stressed is ‘what did I do wrong?’.

Next week we’ll take a look at pitta dosha, the following week kapha dosha, and then I will talk through some ways that you can bring the doshas back into balance.

If you enjoy these Ayurveda ‘shorts’ a like will let me know to carry on!

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Last week I talked about how the doshas are the basic biology of the body, and each has its own function – Vata dosha supplies the energy for movement of fluids and nutrients, enabling them to reach and enter the cells; Pitta dosha supplies the energy for digestion and metabolism, ensuring the nutrients within the food we consume are metabolized; Kapha dosha supplies energy to lubricate and maintain the structure of the cell.

When there is excess or lack of any of the doshas, the cells cannot perform properly, either because the nutrients are not reaching them (vata issue), or because the nutrients have not been metabolized properly (pitta issue), or there is a problem with the structure of the cell (kapha issue). And, excess doshas in the tissues, along with ama (incompletely metabolised food stuffs) creates the ground for disease.

All chronic diseases are due to an imbalance of the doshas – everyone is born with their specific balance of the doshas and need to keep that balance, in balance. This can be a hard concept for Westerners to get their head around. It involves understanding what to do to keep your constitution in balance, how to recognise when any of your doshas that make up your constitution are moving out of balance through symptoms, and applying the remedies.

We can learn to live in balance through our food, and through our life choices – what we consume through all our senses.

Vata imbalance affects the neurological system, joints, and large intestine. Pitta imbalance causes problems with metabolism and inflammatory disorders. Kapha imbalance creates excessive moisture and heaviness leading to obesity, excess mucus and lung problems, and diabetes.

While Western medicine has to wait for the chronic disease to develop – stage 6 of the disease model – then treats the symptoms; Ayurveda picks up the symptoms of the dosha moving out of balance long before the chronic disease develops, and corrects this imbalance, reversing the biological conditions that were leading to the illness.

This is what makes Ayurveda such a fantastic preventative healthcare tool. When you receive an Ayurvedic Consultation you will discover which are the prominent doshas in your constitution, how to live in balance with them, whether you currently have any doshas out of balance, and what to do about it – your Ayurvedic plan.

None of this is hard, when you know how. Next week I’ll be talking about the symptoms that start to show up when any of the doshas are moving out of balance.

If you enjoy these Ayurveda ‘shorts’ a like will let me know to carry on!

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

Nature is F A N T A S T I C.

Ayurveda is a nature-based, holistic approach to health, which views us as part of nature. We learn about the 5 elements and how Ayurveda recognises these as underpinning everything in the material universe including us – earth, water, fire, air, and ether.

When Ayurveda talks about the elements, it is referring to the understanding that ‘life’ is underpinned by energy that expresses earth, water, fire, air and ether-like qualities, that these qualities allow for everything that takes place in the material universe.

Earth-like qualities allow for substance and structure, water-like qualities allow for lubrication, fire-like qualities allow for metabolism, air-like qualities allow for movement and ether-like qualities allow for space where life can take place.

Our body is made up of all these elemental qualities. Ayurveda explains this through tridosha theory — theory of the three doshas of vata, pitta and kapha. These doshas make up our constitution. Each of us will have our own particular ratio of these making up our constitution – the elemental qualities in varying quantities. Vata Dosha brings air and ether elemental qualities. Pitta dosha brings fire and a little water. Kapha dosha brings earth and water.

The doshas allow for biological processes to take place, and determine our body type, temperament and health tendencies. Pitta dosha allows us to metabolise the food we eat, turning it into a nutrient rich fluid, vata dosha allows that fluid to move to the cells that carry out all the functions needed for us to live a healthy life, while kapha allows for the structure and lubrication of our cells.

We need to keep the balance of the doshas we were born with, in balance, if we want to be well, which we can do through the food and lifestyle choices we make.

When the balance is lost this will impact our biological processes, our digestion and our immunity; we will start to create the conditions that lead to dis-ease and illness, unless we make food and lifestyle choices that return us to balance.

And that, in a nutshell, is what an Ayurvedic plan helps you to do; reverse the conditions that can lead to illness, by returning you to balance, through your food and lifestyle choices. This is done by recognising the symptoms of imbalance, and applying the remedies.

If you have any questions pop them in the comments, and if you enjoyed or found value in this Ayurveda ‘short’, a like would be great, it can be a strange and disconnected experience sharing in the virtual world!

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

WELCOME TO THIS weeks Ayurvedic ‘short’ giving a bite sized read of the history — reading time 2 minutes.

Ayurveda has come to us from the direct wisdom of the rishis(sages) of ancient India more than 5,000 years ago, and is documented in ancient Hindu texts called the ‘vedas’. The word “Ayurveda” is a Sanskrit term, derived from the roots “ayus”, meaning “life”, and “veda”, meaning “knowledge”. The term “Ayurveda” therefore translates as, “Knowledge of life”.

From 3500 BCE to 1900 BCE, Ayurveda was the healthcare system of the Sarasvati civilization, who settled along the Sarasvati River to farm and graze cattle. This civilization, also known as the Indus, grew to include large cities. By 1900 BCE, the Sarasvati River had dried up and the people relocated to East of the Ganges. Then, around 1000 BCE, different systems of thought arose, along with separate schools of practice. At that time, two famous Ayurvedic physicians, Charaka and Shusruta, wrote the texts that modern day Ayurveda refers to: the Charaka Samhita and Shusruta Samhita (“samhita” translates as a structured combination of texts).

By 500 BC Ayurveda was well established and had started to spread outwards to Greece, South-East Asia, Indochina and Indonesia. It was adapted by different religions, including Buddhism and Jainism. Ayurveda is thought to be the oldest system of medicine which has influenced many other traditional natural healing systems including Chinese, Greek and Tibetan.

During 1000 CE Invasions from the Middle East led to the decline of Ayurveda. At this time colleges and libraries were destroyed and the British continued this suppression during their occupation of 1750 to 1947, with Ayurveda surviving through a teacher-student relationship.

Ayurveda has slowly been gaining ground since India’s independence in 1947, particularly in the West, due to a renewed interest in medicine that takes a more holistic, nature-based view of the human being. During the 1980’s Ayurveda was popularised in America by people like Dr Deepak Chopra, Dr Vasant Lad, Dr Marc Halpern and Dr David Frawley.

Of course there is much more that could be written, but I hope you found this bite-sized introduction interesting.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

AYURVEDA, A NATURE-BASED approach to health, is over 5000 years old and recognises the subtle energies that underpin our life and health. It comes from ancient India.

This ancient science teaches us that we nourish the regenerative abilities of our body and mind through the food we eat, as well as through every single thing we consume through each of our senses—how we live our lives.

Ayurveda has a 6-stage model of disease, it isn’t until stages 5 and 6 that Western medicine is able to label an illness. This is what makes this nature-based approach to health such an incredibly powerful preventative healthcare model—by recognising when we are starting to move onto this continuum through symptom recognition, we can reverse what is happening through our choices.

Between stages 1 and 2 reversing the conditions that are causing the symptoms is easy. Between stages 3 and 4 this is usually possible but it takes longer, requires commitment and habit change. By stages 5 and 6 an illness will have developed that can be labelled, and it is not always possible to reverse the condition.

It takes time to create the conditions that lead to illness.

For instance, the Ayurvedic view of cancer is that it is the end result of living out of balance with our biological rhythms, and other biologically stressful conditions; for many years. We don’t need to beat cancer or make a war on cancer, we need to stop creating the conditions that cause cancer. But, this is hard in a culture that undermines our ability to do this in so many ways. Taking an Ayurvedic approach to preventative healthcare can help here.

While Ayurveda is an incredibly complex science, the basics are simple once you understand a few things. And, those basics can mean the difference between physical and mental health; or illness. This will be the subject of my next book ‘21-Day Ayurvedic Journey’ which I will be serialising the first draft of, for you, on this substack.

If you have any questions please do ask. Next week my Ayurvedic short will look at the history of Ayurveda.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

One strand of spiders web across the window, blowing in the wind, as two little birds arrive in the branches of the tree out front and the sky, is chunky grey.

Yesterday, I enjoyed the bright yellow daffodils in an orange vase on my desk fully opening in the sunlight. Blue skies surrounded that early golden morning.

I sat with my warm mug as a seagull swooped in front of me in the sky, and to my left at the same time; a black crow disappeared behind the red-bricked house opposite. All was silent, and I noticed on the other side of the road one of the trees had turned green, as tiny leaf buds had started to open up. Over, on that other side of the road, a church steeple towers above a red slate roof. It reminds me of the old church and its ringing bell, of Vejer de la Frontera, a sound that rang out across that frontier town with its colourful plaza, warm air and sometimes, lavatera winds.

Today, back on this little piece of the planet, this morning, two black crows flew over my head, great flapping wings moving the air currents and then a fly swept past, so tiny by comparison. There then gone.

I’m looking at telegraph wires strung across our street, without raindrops today, moving like French skipping ropes. Black lines matching the crows wings. The tree out front with firework branches swaying in the breeze has three tiny birds flying in and out, as a blackbird nestles into it’s branches.

Slowing down by noticing simple things in this fast-paced world soothes tired minds, protects them; heals them, especially when there’s silence. Ayurveda says that when it’s silent you can hear internal sounds and that these are very healing for the mind. And I know this is true because when I started to go deaf in my 30’s, that sound of silence that you hear when there’s no other noises, was really soothing on stressed days.

When I look out of these eyes searching for the small natural things of this world I remember. I remember I am a whole human being.

Joy dots

Recipe

Quinoa tahini lemon bowl with Squash and kale

This was a tasty grain bowl. I cooked up some quinoa and while it was cooking made a lemony tahini dressing—tahini, little water, lemon juice, tamari, raw honey, garlic. I toasted sunflower seeds and tossed in tamari. I toasted hazelnuts and ground them into a dukka with sea salt, black pepper and cardamon. I steamed chopped up winter squash and shredded kale. First I made the grain bowl with everything except the veggies, so I could use it later on in a different way, then I added in the veggies and more of the dressing. It was, lovely.

Ayurveda

I wanted to say a big THANK YOU to my subscribers who took part in the 21-Day Ayurvedic Challenge, which will, from now on, be called the 21-Day Ayurvedic Journey. This is because, although during these 21 days I share the foundations for any Ayurvedic healthcare plan through daily challenges, it is a journey into Ayurveda, and a very rare person who could embed these into their life immediately.

In April I will be offering support to carry out an Ayurvedic spring cleanse to any of my subscribers who would like this, as a thank you for opening and reading my Slow Sundays, giving me the encouragement with what I’m doing. This support will include information emailed to you prior to each part of the cleanse—there are three parts—and a What’s App group where you can ask questions and chat with each other. So, email me if you would like to take part in that.

Understanding the Ayurvedic approach to health

I thought it might be useful for anyone interested in Ayurveda, if I shared a core understanding around nourishment.

Nourishment

Ayurveda explains that we feed ourselves in three ways, and that we need to make sure we are nourishing ourselves through all three, if we want to be really healthy.

We feed our body with food, our mind through the things we take in through our senses, and our heart through our relationships.

Any one of these areas can cause a substance called ama to build in our system (undigested food and experiences) if what we are consuming is toxic, for example, junk food and junk experiences come under this category. What follows looks at digestion and toxicity, it may sound a bit complicated, but it’s worth reading if you want to understand why what we feed ourselves in these three areas matters.

Digestion

The foods we eat, when and how, all impact the incredible process of digestion within our body, which includes our microbiome and all the other things that allow for metabolism to take place.

Ayurveda refers to our digestive process as ‘agni’ or ‘digestive fire’. The process of Agni metabolises the food we eat to provide energy for our cells—the process of metabolism at a cellular level releases energy the cell uses to carry out its functions; and a nutrient rich substance to nourish our tissues. This process takes about 35 days and leads to ‘Ojas’ being created, a subtle substance which determines how strong our immunity is—no Ojas no life.

And so, agni allows us to metabolise life. When it is balanced and working well, we are happy, emotionally balanced, have strong immunity and a clear mind. When agni becomes compromised, ama (biomolecular sludge) gathers in the digestive tract. The slow build-up of ama causes the immune system to react with an allergic reaction causing inflammation, and the digestive system weakens to the point where it may not be able to digest gluten or properly digest food leaving partially undigested food particles (more ama).

Ama blocks the body’s cleansing pathways and as it builds, if not addressed, it travels out into the blood stream with inflammation the result which becomes chronic if ama isn’t addressed. Once ama is in the blood it can cause havoc in the body—organs, tissues, cells and biological processes.

The chronic inflammation caused by ama causes cells to start disfunctioning with symptoms developing that can include fatigue, low resistance to infection, muscle weakness, joint pain, digestive disorders, acne, anxiety, headaches, depression, allergies, body weight chaos, diabetes, heart diseases, dementia, cancer and other chronic diseases.

Ama is responsible for the breakdown in communication within and between cells that leads to cancer. Cancerous cells are cells that have become isolated from the rest of the system due to this toxic sludge called ama. Ama is, from an Ayurvedic perspective, the underlying cause of all our modern chronic diseases.

Todays chronic deceases have been on the increase since the post-war period when the typical Western diet and lifestyle started to change dramatically—our modern lifestyle does not support the healthy functioning of digestion.

When digestive issues start turning up, if the ama, dosha imbalances and diminished microbiome are not all addressed, other symptoms will start appearing further down the line as the body expresses dis-ease, eventually arriving at an illness that Western medicine will be able to label.

When agni is balanced and working well we can handle life and the body can handle many things like toxins and inflammation; it can rebalance itself. But when agni is weak we find life hard to handle, the body struggles to maintain homeostasis and Agni is further impaired.

The answer is to build the digestive fire (agni) so that it can burn up the ama, then eat a diet that will support the body to then clear this out, along with a few therapies that support this.

Ama has to be removed and Ojas (the pure substance from completely digested foods) needs to be strong so that health can return. Ojas moves throughout the body and sustains our biology. It brings clarity to the mind (when there is no clarity Ojas has been compromised) and leads to balanced emotions (emotions can also become unbalanced when one of the doshas  is moving out of balance – pitta anger, vata anxiety, Kapha depression).

Agni also metabolises experiences. We can consume toxic and junk experiences as well as toxic and junk food, both have an impact on our digestion, our dosha balance and our microbiome; with stress being an example of toxicity coming into our system through our senses.

Toxins

Toxins come from our external environment, and internally through the process of metabolism. A healthy body with good digestion will clear these out, but when digestion is compromised, the body starts to struggle to do this. This is also the case when the toxic levels are too high. For instance, toxins in the environment which we are all exposed to, stress related toxins, toxins that accumulate due to particles of undigested substances.

Ama develops at first in the colon and small intestine, and then enters the blood stream and makes its way around the body taking up residence in the weakest tissues or organs, causing disease in these areas. The quickest way to reverse this is to go to a reputable panchakarma clinic, then follow the post-panchakarma advice. But this is expensive.

It is possible to address this at home in a gentle way, depending on your health context. At the centre of this approach is the Ayurvedic Cleanse, adapted to the needs of the individual and the season.

The Ayurvedic spring cleanse is a simple home cleanse that is both gentle and nourishing while supporting the strength digestion.

If you have any questions pop them in the comments.

As I finish writing this, there is a tiny splash of blue in the sky, but in my imagination I have stretched it into a full deep blue sky with sun setting over the sea, where I am swimming with a whale in warm soft waters.

Warmest wishes,

Lucy x

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

For a brief moment this week I felt spring in the air, as the sun shone down. It was Imbolc the ancient Celtic festival of light when farmers planned the planting of seeds. Myth has it that sun on Imbolc means spring is truly on the way.

Today the grey skies shine charcoal silver and winds are blowing the trees in all directions.

And the sound! Roaring through the tree branches. Only the holly stood barely moving.

It’s that funny in between time, when hints of new beginnings have disappeared, and winter seems to have decided to take firm hold again. This brought lots of Woolley hats out for a walk today, and joggers were wearing many layers. Even small dogs wore jackets.

It’s that time of year when we in the UK talk of moving to a different country. The sap is starting to rise, but winter is saying, stay, hunker down, keep hibernating; and yet, there is a light in that deep grey sky that I can see, and I know, spring is not far away. And the snowdrops know it too.

Today, has been a great example of how the elements that underpin the weather play out during winter season.

Ayurveda explains that each season corresponds to one of the dosha’s of vata, pitta and kapha. The doshas make up our constitution and form every material thing. They bring qualities that are like earth, water, fire, air and ether. Vata brings air and ether, pitta brings fire and a little water, and kapha brings water and earth. Winter is a combination of vata and kapha. When winter brings the elements (qualities) of vata air and ether increase, but by late winter kapha starts taking centre stage with the elements of water and earth increasing.

Today is late winter, lots or wet earth—kapha—but also lots of wind—vata. Why is this important to understand? Because, we are made up of the doshas too, and we consume their qualities all the time, through our food and our senses. Today lots of vata was entering my human system from the huge winds, but water and earth too as I walked across the wet mud and drank in the earth and water qualities in the environment.

Imbalance

If you are a vata type, and too much of the vata qualities enter your biological system, you will end up with too much of those qualities, and this will lead to vata type illnesses, if you don’t rebalance yourself.

And so, at this time of year those with too much of a build up of vata will be feeling anxious, restless, ungrounded, spaced out, even fearful; and they will need to fill themselves up with warm, soft nourishment. Those with too much of a build up of Kapha qualities will be feeling lethargic, flat, depressed, lacking motivation, excess mucus; and they will need to energise their lives, begin a lively exercise routine especially if they don’t feel like it, and switch from eating sugary heavy food to eating light foods. And, the kapha qualities will continue to gain ground as we move into spring, which is why we need to adjust our diet and behaviour at that time. Nature supports us to do this, by growing the very plants our body needs more of, to stay in balance. Our health, for Ayurveda, is all about balance.

On the way back home, as I walked past the unmoving holly bush, I realised the natural world was still mostly asleep. As I sit now and write these words, everything is silent. Cocooned in velvety softness. The branches on the tree out front and across the road are waving around, and in the distance nothing stirs except more trees above dry red rooftops. It really is as if the whole of Bristol is sleeping. People snuggled inside with fires and warm mugs, books, and pottering. Slowly, slowly attuning to the hints of possibilities. We are ready to move on. But, it isn’t quite spring.

Photo by Aaron Burden—unsplash

Joy dots

Recipe

Chicken & creamy mash with minty courgette purée

This was an easy throw together lunch. I sauted the chicken and at the same time, had the potatoes on cooking. In another pan I put the courgettes chopped in a with a little water and a handful of mint and cooked them. When the courgettes were cooked (I waited until there was no water in the pan) I blended them with the mint and a little cream, salt and black pepper. I mashed the potatoes with butter, cream, salt and black pepper, and served with green beans and the chicken. Very simple but also, delish.

Beginnings of a new ‘fall asleep’ story.

The fox decided it was time to move to the country. The night was dark as he slivered between parked cars, ran along pavements, and disappeared in and out of driveways and across slips of roads. The sky was full of clouds and the fox stayed on the back streets, as he made his way to the end of concrete and into a field. Ran he did. Ran and ran when paws met wet earth. And then he ran some more. As he ran, the clouds became thin and moonlight, shone down. That moon, almost full but not quite, lit his way, and stars sparkled at him. On and on he went, without stopping, under fences, into woodland, over hills and down muddy pathways until, he found himself far far out and away from the city, with the sun beginning to rise. The birds, they sang to him, and he found himself a lovely wood to fall asleep in, under trees of wood and green. Later in the day, he opened those sleepy eyes. Stared up at the sunlight shining through softly moving branches and, up he got, padding his way into open space where grass grew out of warm wet earth. There he enjoyed the feel of the sunshine on his ginger furry back, as he settled down on the grass, and just beed.

Wishing you the warmest,

Lucy x

Share

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Today has been, a soggy day. Which was just perfect for playing around in the kitchen.

Seeing the beauty

Early this morning, I went out walking through rain in the Sunday morning city, to see what I could find. I found cars slooshing along wet roads and cyclists getting wet. The main road shops were readying themselves for the buzz of Sunday shoppers. I cut off into a park and found piles of wet leaves, muddy grass with pools of water laying across the surface, worms having a feast and the caravan cafe, had come and set up its chairs and tables no matter the weather, loyal to any dog walker that may want a cuppa and homemade cake. The sky was a mix of dark charcoal blues, with hints of sun rising behind. It was a beautiful wet and windy start to the day, where everything was wrapped in a half light.

Later, as the rain eased off, the wind increased and all the pearly raindrops fell in a big swoop from the tree branches. The sound of the wind in the top of the trees reminded me of when I was young. I loved falling asleep to stormy nights, rain on the windows, wind in the treetops and sometimes thunder and lightning. I’d get up then, to look out of the window as the sky lit up, and the night air rumbled.

By the time I arrived back home today, both the wind and rain had disappeared. Some of my neighbours were in the street clearing up the leaves. A young lad had swept so many up into big piles. I stopped to help put them into the green bins. This is the first time since moving here 18 months ago that I have met my neighbours, it was nice to discover they did exist, such is life in a city. Perhaps we will meet again. It was nice, this brief interlude of community.

I can see the church across the road, now that the tree out front has lost its leaves. At night, the man who turned it into apartments and strung lights up out the front, sometimes turns them on and it looks like a little palace. Last year he put a tissue paper nativity scene in his windows and the whole thing looked like a little Christmas card. I used to leave my curtains open so that I could watch it as I fell asleep. No matter how old I get, I never really seem to grow up.

The three pillars of Ayurveda

When I work with people, the hardest thing they find to do is change their habits, and often that’s what needs to happen, if they want to create the conditions from which good health, naturally arises.

I think the problem is that here in the West we have become accustomed to a pill and a quick fix, but Ayurveda doesn’t work like that. If you focus on Ayurvedic herbs to make you well, further down the line, nothing much will really have changed.

There are three things that need to be addressed for any Ayurvedic plan to work—resetting your circadian rhythm, renewing your digestion and rebalancing your constitution. And, it’s amazing how long it can take a person to do what’s needed to achieve all these things. That’s why I often repeat myself. And, I keep coming back to these basic things. It really is quite amazing how well you can feel if you get these three things right.

Ayurveda has always explained that we are a miniature of the universe. The energy of the universe has qualities. I’ve talked about the gunas of Sattva, Rajas and tamas here. These gunas allow the elements of ether, air, fire, water and earth to exist. And it is these elements (qualities) that form our constitution, as well as the natural world around us.

Throughout the day, and the seasons these qualities change, and we need to live in sync with that through our choices. This is how Ayurveda explains how to live in balance with our circadian rhythms. The Ayurvedic daily and seasonal routines are all aimed at keeping us in balance with our circadian rhythms. And, that’s what chapter one of the book I will start writing in January, will introduce you to. It will include seven days of practice so that you can try the ideas out, and get an overview of them.

I would love it if you became a paying subscriber and shared the journey into Ayurveda with me. But if you don’t I will still be writing these Slow Sunday letters with warm words, joy dots, meandering thoughts and recipes for everyone.

Joy dots

Recipe

Homemade sauerkraut

This gut friendly food is just so easy and cheap to make. And it’s a real boost to your gut microbiome.

I used a red cabbage and a green/white cabbage, made them separately but when decanting into jars I filled two of the jars with a mix of both. The green/white cabbage in the mixed ones ended up all these lovely colours—bottom two jars!

Method

For every pound of cabbage I used 2 teaspoons of mineral rich rock salt.

Simply shred your cabbage by cutting into quarters then finely slicing. Put this into a large ceramic or glass bowl with the salt and massage the shredded cabbage for about 15 minutes, or until lots of water has been drawn out and you can feel the fibres in the cabbage have broken down. Pack into a large glass or ceramic container making sure the liquid covers the cabbage when you have put a weight on it—I used a mason jar with glass weights.

Leave for a few weeks—2 weeks light ferment/4 weeks stronger ferment—then jar up.

If you grow the cabbages in living soil then it’s even cheaper and full of your local biome, which is one of the best things you can supplement your diet with for a healthy microbiome. Good health doesn’t have to cost the earth.

When the boat came home

You can find the last part of this fall asleep story here (my fall asleep stories will be recorded, I will use the Hypnotherapy pace for recording to ensure your brain rhythm shifts from beta—waking consciousness—or high beta—stressed consciousness—to theta—relaxed.

In the morning, smoke could still be seen making its way from the fire, in a spiral stream into the early morning sky. Underneath this there were still a few embers glowing. The woman with the salty hands was bent low, as she fed these embers a breakfast of little dry sticks and blew, ever so gently.

The rain didn’t come last night and everyone slept out under the stars. They were still asleep now, except, for the lady with the salty fingers and hands. Even the dog was sound asleep, curled up with children. They all snoozed.

But the lady, she walked down to the sea with two buckets. One she filled with seaweed, the other with water from the stream that was trickling into the ocean. Then she danced barefoot on the wet sand, under a sky where the sun had not yet risen, while crabs scampered into the ocean and jelly fish floated out of harms way. All that was left was the lady, her buckets of seaweed and fresh water, and a few lugworms making patterns on the sandy beech, where the outgoing tide had made ripples.

When the lady with salty fingers made her way back to the fire, it was glowing and there were little flames dancing. She placed some larger sticks onto the warm flames then set up a tripod made of three tall fat sticks, hanging a pot over it into which she placed the water. Then, just as the dog began to wake, the lady walked across the top of the beech collecting leaves.

The dog followed her, yawning and walking ever so slowly. Together they made their way to a rock and sat to gaze out at the sea. The lady’s eyes came to rest on her boat and a smile lit up her face. Soon, it would be time to go to sea again.

Wishing you the warmest of weeks,

Lucy x

Share

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Frost on the rooftops, winter settling in with shortening days, heading towards the solstice. A time for cultivating warmth inside and out. Everything slows down in nature including the needs of our own body.

Where I can, I snuggle inwards with cosy food, slow days, big jumpers, nourishing reads and food to make my insides happy; as ever, guided by Ayurveda.

I’m researching in relation to my next book which will be a 21-day challenge, introducing the three main things that form the foundation of any Ayurvedic healthcare plan—circadian rhythms, constitutional balance and digestion.

The term circadian rhythm is a western one, but Ayurveda bases its whole Science of health on the view that we are a miniature of the universe, that good health is dependant upon living in rhythm with the natural cycles in the external environment—day/night and the seasons—and our internal body clocks. That’s why as the seasons change, Ayurveda suggests we need to make a few changes, to remain in balance and in good health.

Here in the UK the temperatures have plummeted as we shift from autumn to winter. This is a season that has a mix of vata which brings dry, cold, light qualities, and Kapha which brings heavy, wet, cold qualities. As the winter season develops, the lightness of vata is replaced with the heaviness of kapha, but those vata qualities are still around on dry cold, windy days. And so, we need to adjust our behaviours to balance out the qualities we are taking in from our external environment. This is done by cultivating the opposite qualities.

When it’s cold, wet, and damp we need to create warm, cosy experiences in our home, our social lives and our stomachs. By wrapping up warm, creating warm homes in terms of temperature but also how it feels to the senses. And, by eating warm nourishing foods. When it’s cold, windy and dry, again we need to cultivate the opposite qualities, by slowing down and creating stillness, staying warm, taking warm steamy baths and eating unctuous heated foods. Creating warm-hearted social times, even on your own, is important to avoid the emotional coldness that can appear in response to the cold weather change outside, with music you like and downtime relaxing, doing things that bring you comfort and joy.

Here’s some ideas

• Eat warm nourishing stews, soups, porridge’s, rice puddings, and stewed apples with ghee or creamed coconut and spices.

• Avoid cold and raw foods.

• Use spices like cinnamon, cloves, cardamon, ginger and black pepper.

• Drink warm drinks like liquorice, fennel or cinnamon teas, or warm turmeric lightly spiced milk with maple syrup.

• Generally, eat more of the sweet (not processed), sour and salty tastes—different constitutional balances may need to adapt this.

• Cultivate light-heartedness and a sense of purpose—but not in a driven way.

• Create opportunities for fun and laughter and invite warmth into your life—it doesn’t mean you don’t care about those suffering and it does mean you will be better able to do what you can.

• Slow down and refuse to rush.

• Keep to a predictable daily routine.

• Exercise every day—when feeling over-stretched and exhausted stick to gentle things like replenishing yoga asanas, tai chi and walking; if sluggish and lethargic go for more energetic things like jogging or a long hike.

• Carry out Abhyanga—self-massage with lots of sesame oil—each day either first thing or before you go to bed followed by a warm steamy bath.

• Rest.

• Reduce stress.

Photo by Pexels—pixabay

Our busy lifestyle here in the West doesn’t always make these things easy to do, but if you pop up comments I can help you brainstorm. I used to manage these things when bringing up my children on my own, living on and under the poverty line without a car, sometimes having to choose between heating or food—I always chose food—before this became a National epidemic. I discovered it was all doable if I changed my mindset and made a few tweaks to my life. I remember one Christmas I couldn’t afford a Christmas tree so I cut out one from green tissue paper, then made decorations which I glued onto it out of other coloured tissue paper, glued this to the wall near a power socket and strung fairy tree lights over it. And you know, my kids still remember this with huge fondness and laughter, and they never remember the actual Christmas trees we had.

If winter gets you down, let me know your three worst things in the comments and I will share the Ayurvedic take on them to support you—next year I will put up a paywall (£5.99 per month) and create a community of people who would like me to share everything I know about Ayurveda with them, including my books as I write them. So if you can’t afford complimentary healthcare and don’t have the time to research or train for yourself, this is a way I can share with you. I trained with the American Institute of Vedic Studies, have membership with the Ayurvedic Professionals Association and have been helping people for the last ten years.

Recipe

Sweet potato & chard soup

Aren’t those colours gorgeous! I made a soup with lots of fresh ginger and black pepper to ward off all those winter bugs out there. I sautéd some red onion in ghee then added these vegetables along with lots of black pepper, fresh grated ginger and stock. Once cooked I seasoned with rock salt and a little fresh lime juice. It would have been nice served with some cashew cream seasoned with a cardamon dukka. When I write my cookery book next year I will weigh everything out, just playing at the moment.

I was chatting with a friend who lived in Norway for a few years, she was describing the beauty of that place and I thought, one day I will go there for Christmas.

Photo by Kristjan Kotar—unsplash

Wishing you the warmest, till Sunday,

Lucy x

Share

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

The sky is peachy with swathes of translucent clouds and one seagull flying through. The tree out front, has branches still covered in leaves that move this way and that, to a gentle rhythm.

As I write about the tree it’s branches start waving energetically, so close to the window I feel like I’m inside the tree. This, is a treehouse sitting room where I sit, on a suburban street where the tree outside my window is showing me that autumn, has arrived.

The coriander in my window boxes has gone to flower, waving about in the autumn breeze. Soon the seeds will arrive and drop back down into the soil.

Most of the birds have gone to distant lands and the magpie which will stay, has made its home in a different tree this year, so birdsong has become rare by my window. And the crow is no where to be seen. I shall find enjoyment in the silent airwaves as the branches of the tree out front swirl, looking forward to more chatak chataking and jet black wings in future times.

The sky is blue and silver now, forever changing.

My favourite seasons have always been spring and summer, but as I get older I’m learning to enjoy the hibernation that autumn can bring—cosy times, slowing down, warm jumper, juniper berries, sun low in the sky, golden light, warm stews, candles, clear blue mornings, starry nights early in the evening, flickering fires inside and out, autumn leaves.

I wonder what the season is like for you, and what you are noticing, perhaps you’ll tell us in the comments—I’m saying us in case we’re building community.

How we bring ourselves

When I was away on my gap year that turned into three, while helping at a place called Embercombe, Mac the founder once said to me, “It’s how we bring ourselves, Lucy”.

And I came to realise he was right.

In Ayurveda the way we bring ourselves has a lot to do with our constitutional type, but fundamentally it is determined by the qualities of the energy we are consuming and expressing.

Ayurveda talks about the gunas of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. Different foods and experiences bring these gunas—sets of qualities—into the nature of who we are, and what we become.

Sattva guna brings the qualities of lightness, clarity, balance, intelligence, positivity, peace. Rajas brings the qualities of passion, action, motion, energy, disturbed emotions, attachment and longing. Tamas brings the qualities of density, structure, illusion, misperception, heaviness, darkness, deception, chaos and destruction. We are a mixture of all of them and they all balance each other out. And, this mix changes over time, dependent upon what we consume.

We need all three gunas for material existence. Tamas allows our bodies to exist, the structure of things in the world, and the decay needed for life’s seasons to flow. But, in the mind tamas causes misperception and emotionally leads to depression. Rajas allows creativity to flow but too much and without the clarity, balance and intelligence of Sattva; leads to the culture we live in currently, which drives us to consume without care.

The gunas determine how we bring ourselves to our lives. When in a rajasic way unchecked by the peaceful, balanced, intelligent qualities of sattva; this leads to a driven, disturbed, agitated state of being; and when coupled with tamas, can become ruthless, addicted, uncaring and misperceiving.

And so, while all the gunas are needed for physical existence, in the mind we need mainly sattva, if we want to live a healthy, happy, balanced life.

We determine whether we are more sattvic, rajasic or tamasic by what we consume through our senses and our food. If you eat a diet full of processed food laden with artificial preservatives, salt and sugar—quick fix processed tastes that the body becomes addicted to—you will over time, feel restless or lethargic, and create the conditions for ill health as your body’s innate abilities to rebalance, regenerate and heal, are diminished. This will also play out in your mind and emotional experience of life, including how you perceive things with its knock on effect of how you bring yourself to the world.

This takes time. It doesn’t happen over night, so a film night eating lots of rajasic/tamasic foods and watching something with similar qualities, isn’t necessarily a problem, because it can be offset by other more sattvic choices that you are making most of the time—it all depends on your life context. But if you do it most of the time, illness and an unhappy state of mind will be the result.

It’s a fascinating subject, one I’m going to pick up in my The Ayurveda Series podcast next year—possibly later this year—where I will talk about how to live a sattvic life.

Joy dots

Wishing you the warmest,

Lucy x

Share

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Autumn has definitely arrived, so I thought I’d send out some Ayurvedic tips for moving into the Autumn season, including this lovely porridge recipe made with whole oats groats with the last of this seasons figs.

The wind is blustering outside my window and the tree, beginning to turn golden, has branches that are throwing themselves every which way. And then, for a few moments they stop, and just the leaves on the end of the branches flutter. Sky full of clouds, for a moment the sun seemed to be behind them, then, more layers of charcoal sky painted their way across the skyline. I think there is going to be a storm. The atmosphere is silent, still. The ground stands waiting and all the little creatures, are not to be seen. My window boxes, still full of coriander and parsley flutter, then stop then start again in rhythm with the tree. In the distance there is the sound of a city moving from day to night.

Ayurveda autumnal tips

Each of the seasons corresponds to the doshas that make up our constitution. This is because, for Ayurveda, the elements that make up the doshas also create the seasons.

During autumn and early winter there is more of the elements of air and ether (space) in the environment. To stay in balance (foundation for good health) we need to regulate our body and mind through consuming less of the air and ether elements. I’ll talk about this more in my podcast The Ayurveda Series later in the year. I just wanted to give a simple understanding of what the Ayurvedic autumnal advice is based upon.

Ayurveda tips for enjoying autumn

• Eat well-cooked protein-rich foods.

• Lean in towards the sweet, salty and sour tastes (I’ll go into this more fully in the podcast but the tastes are created by the elements, for instance the bitter taste is created by the elements of air and ether so you want less of this during autumn).

• Drink lots of warm herbal teas like fennel, liquorice, ginger and chamomile.

• Eat unctuous (good quality oils like olive, sesame, butter and ghee), moist, warm foods.

• Keep warm and cosy.

• Feed your senses grounding peaceful activities.

• Play music that makes you happy and is uplifting and peaceful.

• Wrap up and walk in nature.

• Give yourself a self-massage with lots of sesame oil followed by a warm bath – vata types every day, pitta types 3-4 times a week, kapha types 2-3 times a week (here’s a quiz to help you discover your constitution).

• Live life to a gentle rhythm (do the same things at the same time each day, this will sooth your nervous system which can become anxious as autumn gets under way for some people - vata types mainly, kapha types love autumn!).

I will send out more Ayurvedic posts to support your health during this change of seasons. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions.

Joy dots

If you are new to my substack, you can read about joy dots here

These are mine for today, I’d love to know yours if you felt like putting them in the comments. When you write and speak joy dots it fires up positive neural networks in your brain, which is great for addressing stress.

Recipe

The picture at the top of this letter is if one of my favourite porridge recipes for autumn. I make it with 1/3 cup whole oats groats to 8 parts water. I put this in a slow cooker on low (you can cook in the oven on very low overnight but use boiling water), to which I add one apple chopped, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder, 5 crushed cardamon pods, 1/4 cup orange segments chopped and 2 figs sliced. In the morning I add some maple syrup before eating and mix in ground almonds, about 1/2 a cup.

Warm wishes,

Lucy x

Subscribe now

Share your wellbeing

Leave a comment

I WANTED TO set the context for why I am so happy to share Ayurveda with you. Warm words for lowering stress will return on Friday with some recipe catch-up.

When I look up from working on my screen and see the tree branches moving, the leaves rustling and the parsley in my window box swaying this way and that, the nourishing qualities of the natural world come into my mind, they feed my biology, they connect me to my humanity. While the technology I use increasingly nudges me towards being machine like, the natural world reminds me what I really am. And, what a precious gift being human is. Without this connection to the natural world around us, I don’t think biological life as we know it can survive.

Ayurveda is a nature-based approach to health that is profound, laying out everything you need to know to nourish and heal yourself. While it’s underpinned by a complex science, the foundations for living a healthy life are surprisingly simple and, this is what can make benefitting from it so hard.

We are immersed in a consumer culture that teaches us to look for a pill and a quick fix, the latest diet, a new discovery telling us that ‘new’ is ‘sexy’ and ‘old’ isn’t. The media conditions us to want the next ‘hot’ thing, seek a new ‘buzz’, get excited about some upcoming tech, and to make lots of money from all of these things. Meanwhile Ayurveda is over 5000 years old, rooted in nature and takes us back to a simple way of being; recognising that it takes time to create the conditions for ill health and it takes time to change this.

There have been so many wonderful advances and discoveries within Western culture, but they have been underpinned by a mindset that diminishes nature; our own, indigenous nature-based cultures, and the natural world around us. Ayurveda has an explanation for why this is the case through its theory of the gunas –  the energetic qualities of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas – which underpin everything in the universe.

Sattva brings awareness, balance, light, happiness, and illumination into our experience. Rajas brings change, energy, drive, ambition, dynamism, imbalance, activity, disturbed emotions, pain, and passion into our experience. Tamas makes substance possible, allowing our bodies to exist, it also brings decay and in the mind dullness, inertia, resistance and confusion. We need all the gunas for physical experience but in the mind we need Sattva, otherwise we will create the conditions that lead to disease and decay.

From an Ayurvedic perspective we are living through a very rajasic/tamasic period here on planet Earth, where it is hard to find the Sattvic qualities we need to bring health on all levels back into our experience. You can find a lovely piece about the gunas and healing here by .

I will be returning to how the gunas underpin our health in the Autumn, but I wanted to share something I touched upon in my book “Your Peaceful Belly”, which discusses how the play of the gunas during the industrial revolution, led to the decaying culture we now see around us, suggesting we could change this by focusing once again on cultivating sattva:

“…If you look at global culture since industrialization you can see the process of the gunas acting out in Western and Westernised societies, which have become increasingly rajasic (driven) and tamasic (decaying).

During the industrial revolution many people living in the countryside, in touch with natures sattvic qualities and rhythms, were moved into cities where they worked in factories cut off from nature’s sattvic qualities. They were driven (rajas) to work 14–16-hour days, 6 days a week, in unhealthy (tamas) conditions. After these long days in rajasic/tamasic conditions they stepped out into an environment full of rajasic and tamasic qualities – competition (rajas), disturbed emotions (rajas), pollution (tamas), lack of fresh food (tamas), deprivation (tamas), and destruction of natural habitats (tamas).

The creation of these conditions came from a mindset that rose out of a rajasic/tamasic mental nature, and as time went by this mindset became ever more rajasic (driven) and tamasic (leading to decay).

I am not suggesting there were no rajasic and tamasic conditions in rural livelihoods prior to industrialization, just that these tendencies became increased and were not offset by the sattvic qualities of nature and living to natures daily/seasonal rhythms.

As industrial society continued to develop, along with an economic system underpinned by the rajasic drives of competition and desire, our individual and collective behaviours have been fed by these qualities, and led to what we see around us currently in the world. The drive (rajas), greed (rajas) and competition (rajas) of our consumer culture creates fear (tamas) and forces people to compete (rajas) for things that are produced by destroying (tamas) communities, individuals, and the natural environment we depend upon – the ecosystem of which we are a part.

Our rajasic culture encourages the disturbed emotions that further embed the nature of rajas in our minds and bodies through addictions (tamas), leading to the decay (tamas) of our people, the eco-system, and the planet. It is an energetic dance, and we play our part in this dance with every choice we make. Our food and sensory choices, along with our approach to life, determine how sattvic, rajasic or tamasic we become, along with the systems in our world that are created by us.

And so, we need to return to a place of balance (Sattva), and Ayurveda teaches us how to do that, if you are willing to make a few lifestyle changes, that can seem too simple to a mind that is choc full of the consumer way of viewing things.”

Photo by Rostyslav Savchyn – unsplash

We truly are made of stardust, and the rhythm of our bodies dances in step with nature’s rhythms. We need to live in harmony with this for health to naturally arise. In the autumn I will start recording my podcast, to get you started.

Next week I go on my annual Buddhist teaching retreat and so will cut back to one post a week. Then in September I will start recording.

Till Friday, warmest wishes,

Lucy x

Leave a comment

Share What to do when you don’t feel great!

Subscribe now

I’M HAVING WHAT substack calls a ‘milestone’ moment. I’ve been posting out these letters for three months, three a week. I wasn’t sure if anyone would read them or find them of any value, but I’ve got 135 subscribers now, and each time I post over a hundred people have a read.

I started writing them to send some nourishment out into the world, and share what I’d been learning about Ayurveda, and how to manage stress through seeing the beauty. I’ve recently had the thought that some people may be more interested in the recipes, others the Ayurveda, or the warm words and seeing the beauty. So, I thought I could send my letters out with a specific theme during the week, and on Sundays I’ll send out a Slow Sunday letter with a mix of things in it.

I created a section this weekend for each of my subject areas, which means that in future you will be able to go to my homepage here, and find what you are looking for in the menu. There’s a section for my recipes, for warm words under Manage Stress, for digestion under Your Peaceful Belly (I will be recording an audio of my book in this section), and for Ayurveda under Ayurveda & Wellbeing.

The sun was up this morning, it was one of those deeply serene, still mornings; the kind you feel in your heart, as if no one else was awake. It often feels like that in the road where I live. I hardly ever see anyone out front in their gardens, just cars that they must get in and out of while I’m busy doing other things. I don’t mind, I used to live on a main road where I also didn’t meet many neighbours, just lots of motor bikes and cars with loud exhausts and sirens from the hospital route so, always noisy. This morning of silent golden blessings, is like nectar.

I noticed while visiting my sister, who retired to Vejer de la frontera just before Brexit kicked in over here in the U.K., that the whole town was like that, and being there had the added bonus of bumping into people who smiled, waved and stopped for a chat, as they made their way around the cobbled streets, alongside the white washed patio apartments ancient in their stillness. Everything about the experience was steady, warm, friendly and consistent. Just what a vata type does well on – explained further on.

Ayurveda

I’ve been thinking about how kindness, sunshine and peace nourish the mind and the heart. Ayurveda explains that nutrition includes what we feed our minds, hearts, and body. Serenity is viewed as something that needs to be woven into life daily, to feed the mind nourishment, and warm-hearted human contact is needed to feed the heart. We need both along with nourishing food if we want to be well and happy.

Ayurveda is an ancient system of health from Ancient India, which explains everything in the universe is comprised of the elements of ether, air, fire, water and earth. These aren’t the actual elements, Ayurveda is using the elements to explain the types of qualities that the energy which underpins everything, bring, allowing for certain functions to take place in our universe. For instance air-like and ether-like qualities allow for movement, fire-like qualities allow for heat, water-like qualities allow for lubrication and earth-like qualities allow for structure.

We have all these elements (qualities) within us, but we have more of some than others. They make up the constitution that we are born with, our nature. And, they are always flowing into or out of balance, determined by the things we consume through all our senses. Because everything we consume is also comprised of these qualities.

Ayurveda refers to the proportion of the elements within us (our constitution) through the doshas of vata, pitta and kapha. Vata brings air and ether qualities. If we are a vata type we will have lots of air-like and ether-like qualities in our constitution, and need to consume more of the others to stay in balance, with balance viewed as the basis for good health.

Vata types in particular will struggle when kindness and peace are lacking from their lives, because this can lead to a vata dosha imbalance that impacts the nervous system. When this happens noises are just too loud for them and cause stress. This can even be a traumatic experience when a person has lived with a vata imbalance for a long time. They become depleted and stuck in the fear/flight (sympathetic) nervous system, which is why the noises of the world around them are just too much. And even when vata types are in balance, there is only so much noise they can take.

It is very hard to live in Western society with a vata imbalance, and vata types need to take care of their nervous system by creating a stable, gentle, peaceful, grounding routine, and eating warm, soft, unctuous, protein-rich, nourishing foods.

Once vata dosha moves out of balance, especially if you are a vata type – tend to be on the thin side; difficulty putting on weight; lots of ideas; creative; lots of movement in the mind, body and daily life – it is hard to come back into balance; but it’s so important if you want to be well in body and mind. A consistent daily routine that is grounding, steady, warm, peaceful and joyful, accompanied with food that brings the same qualities, can really address this. I will be writing more in the future.

As a woman, I love the way each type of constitution brings a different body type, and all are beautiful – vata slim leaning towards underweight when stressed and through older age. Pitta the most muscular and balanced in terms of physique. Kapha bigger boned with more weight leaning towards overweight when stressed and through older age if they become sedentary. And, all shapes are P E R F E C T.

I’d love to know what you’ve been feeding your mind and heart, perhaps you’ll tell me in the comments.

On Wednesday I will be sharing some warm words and seeing the beauty. But for now here is my favourite photo to look at today, a memory from my allotments.

Wishing you the warmest,

Lucy x

Leave a comment

Share What to do when you don’t feel great!

Subscribe now