The Super Powers of Dahl

I recently took a 10 day trip with family out of state. Whenever I travel I do my best to stick to my routines and care for my body, but I also know how important it is to be FLEXIBLE and not stress about things that I can’t control. With my diet, I have to be REALLY flexible, because being on the road just doesn’t allow for nearly the same kind of exquisite culinary care I usually take for myself, especially when trying to go with the flow with other people!

So when I get home, I usually crave the simplest, healthiest, easiest to digest foods there are. Dahl is one of my go-tos.

There are lots of ways to make dahl, and various small legumes you can make it with.I have another recipe for a delicious Red Lentil Curry Dahl, but in the middle of summer that recipe can be a bit too heating. Split yellow mung (or moong) beans are considered one of the most healing foods in ayurveda. That’s because when they are split, well cooked and spiced right, they are very nourishing and easy to digest. (Unsplit ones are green and harder to digest for most people but awesome for sprouting!) They are also high in protein and many vitamins and minerals including manganese, phosphorous, Vitamin C, calcium, iron, zinc, vitamin D,  vitamin B6, cobalamin and magnesium. They are a good source of fiber, folate, folic acid, and antioxidants. They are anti-inflammatory, good for the eyes and skin, and both helpful for weight loss as well as in building bones. Eating them helps lower blood pressure, balance hormone production, and may help lower blood sugar levels.

Here’s what I made on my first day back from traveling that really hit the spot!

Simple Mung (Moong) Dahl

Ingredients:

1 cup split yellow mung (moong) beans, soaked overnight or most of the day and rinsed

2 tablespoons coconut oil or ghee

1/2 teaspoong ground turmeric

1/2 chopped onion or 1 shallot

3/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon cardamom

3/4 inch piece of fresh ginger root, finely chopped (LOVE THIS TOOL FOR DEALING WITH GINGER!)

4 cups water

3/4 teaspoon sea salt or himalayan salt (or to taste)

Optional chopped veggies such as sweet potatoes, peppers, carrots, greens.

Garnishes: chopped fresh cilantro, ghee, squeeze of lime, chopped avocado

Directions:

Start by warming the oil or ghee in a heavy bottomed sauce pan.

Add the onion, and once it as softened, add the turmeric, cumin, cardamom, and ginger, and stir until it browns but not burns.

Then add the soaked, rinseed mung beans and water and stir.

Bring to a boil and then lower to a moderate simmer. Cover and simmer for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally and checking to see if it needs more water.

Uncover and add the salt to taste. Continue to cook if necessary, stirring occasionally, until mung beans are soft enough to not crunch when you eat it. The thickness is up to you and you can use more and less water to achieve a more soupy or thicker consistency. Turn it off and let it rest for 10 minutes. (I like to add some cilantro here so it wilts).

Optionally, you can add any veggies you like. Hard root veggies like sweet potatos can go in after about 15 minutes of cooking, carrots and peppers can go in after 30 minutes, while fresh tomatoes or green can go in right in the last few minutes of cooking.

Serve on its own or over white basmathi rice, and top with a squeeze of lime, chopped cilantro, spoonful of ghee, and some avocado.

Kid tips: My 7 year old son likes to keep his dahl separate from his rice and top both with nutritional yeast. I’ve also heard of parents melting some cheese in the dahl to make it more kid-friendly.

Enjoy!

Fried Foods, Sattva, Rajas and Tamas

We all know we’re supposed to eat healthy and limit things like processed foods, added sugars, and fried foods. So why are these things still so ubiquitous in our world? Well, for one thing, they are so darn TASTY! But with excessive rates of morbid illness like cancer and heart disease linked to these foods, I believe more education at every level will support us all to gradually adopt more beneficial eating habits. This is close to home for me since my parents both recently recovered from cancer and my dad is still recovering from a stroke caused by a blood clot. My grandmother died of pancreatic cancer, and my grandfather died of heart disease. Today I’d like to explain from an ayurvedic perspective WHY we’ll do ourselves a favor by passing on the french fries, at least most of the time!

Ayurvedically speaking, our intention in life is to enliven our own inner intelligence, which is what brings us ultimate health, inspiration, and bliss. According to ayurveda, the same cosmic intelligence that birthed the world and sprouts every plant is pulsing through our every cell. It’s what turned two single cells into a fetus, and turned that fetus into a fully formed adult. It’s the same intelligence that heals our cuts, processes what we eat, and guides our intuition as we navigate our world.

What we eat and take in through all of our senses affects our inner intelligence. We enliven it with pure, or sattvic, foods and experiences, we dull it through tamasic foods and experiences, and we make it frenetic and disjointed through rajasic foods and experiences.

When I smell and see french fries, I crave that crunchy, salty, satisfying rich flavor and crunch. In the short term, they are so enjoyable! But when I pay attention to how I feel later, I notice I feel heavy, dull, and sluggish. That’s because fried foods carry tamasic energy, the energy of inertia, that dulls our digestion and our mind, and ultimately covers up our inner intelligence.

Frying food causes complex changes to the structure of food through oxidation, polymerization, and hydrogenation. In ayurvedic terms, frying food destroys the pure intelligence that was once in the living food, whether it was a vegetable, a grain, or an animal.

Tamasic energy is also found in processed foods, red meat, alcohol, frozen and microwaved foods, as well as dive bars, funeral homes, and dank basements. It pulls our energy downwards and even leads to depression.

Sometimes we crave tamasic foods because we are in a rajasic state. Rajas is the frenetic energy of an overactive mind, the high stimulation of a rock concert, the busy environment of a school cafeteria, and the stressed state of someone with too much on their plate. Rajasic foods include overly spiced foods, caffeine, salt, onion, garlic, and refined sugar.

To optimize our health and enliven our inner intelligence, we want to limit rajasic and tamasic foods and eat mostly sattvic foods, which include fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains, lentils, nuts and seeds, ghee, and fresh dairy products.

So, back to fried foods. Aside from clouding our senses and clogging our arteries, they are also well known from a western perspective to be linked to all the big names in scary diseases including cancer, type 2 diabetes, inflammatory and autoimmune disease, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and heart disease, the number one killer in America.

According to study done in 2018 at the University of Iowa, “frequent consumption of fried foods, especially fried chicken and fried fish/shellfish, was associated with a higher risk of all cause and cardiovascular mortality in women in the US.”

One potential reason for this from a western scientific perspective (which unfortunately means air fryers are not exempt), is that heating foods to high temperatures increases the production of carcinogenic compounds such as acrylamide, a compound formed in foods that become crunchy when cooked. Steaming, boiling, and sautéing produces far less of these than frying and even baking. DANG! I love that satisfying crunch!

Another rationale for the dangers of fried foods is the oils they are fried in. Most restaurants are using oils such as canola, cottonseed, vegetable, and peanut oils. These are high in omega 6 fatty acids, nicknamed the “bad fats”, compared to omega 3s, aka the “good fats” found in things like fish oil, hemp, chia, walnuts and even fruit and vegetables. Actually, we’re meant to have both of these fats, but in proper ratios. Research is still inconclusive on exactly the right ratio of omega 6s to omega 3s, but what we do know is that our ancestors generally ate close to a 1-1 ratio, and on average most people these days are having more of a 20-1 ratio. So generally reducing our intake of omega 6s is a good idea.

And you probably know that fried foods are high in saturated and trans fats, which are known to increase blood cholesterol levels. Not all cholesterol is bad of course, but the kind of cholesterol in fried foods tends to be the kind that clogs and damages the walls of your arteries.

So should we strictly avoid fried foods? No! Life is meant to be enjoyed, and when we are vital, active, and healthy we can process occasional indulgences without detriment. But can we reduce our cravings for short term pleasures by increasing our enjoyment of life’s simpler, more sattvic pleasures? Yes! I am reminded of the yogic concept asteya, meaning non-stealing, and that when I indulge in a short term pleasure now, I may be stealing from my health and comfort in the future. So have your chips and french fries, EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE, and focus on slowing down, enjoying simple pleasures, and deeply nourishing yourself with more harmonious options most of the time.

Join me on Tuesday evenings in September and October to study the incredible wisdom and science of Ayurveda. Learn your unique MindBody Type, and understand how to apply the principles of natural law to really know which diets, herbs, routines and self care practices are the right ones for you.

I'm really excited to be sharing what I've been studying for all these years, starting September 5th and OPEN TO ALL: the Ayurveda Deep Dive, an 8 week course to deeper connection with your body, your health, and the natural world.

Ayurveda, the Knowledge of Life, is a holistic method of understanding the world and your place in it. In this course, dive into the theories of Ayurveda, increase self-awareness of your unique MindBody Type, and implement lifestyle changes, dietary choices, cleansing and restorative practices that will support your health, prevent disease, and enliven your body’s inner intelligence.

Ayurveda is the ultimate preventative medicine. Investing your energy in this knowledge may save you thousands of dollars in future medical expenses, improve your physical and mental health and even increase your lifespan.

Learning ayurvedic principles allows you to look at life from the point of view of nature. Ayurveda teaches us how to live in sync with the natural world and honor our own cyclical nature. Ayurveda is not a set of rules or restrictions; it’s an understanding of the natural laws of the universe. By gradually learning and implementing these principles, we find ourselves naturally drawn to the foods, people, places, and practices that balance us.

If you have thought about studying ayurveda but aren’t ready to invest thousands of dollars in a certificate program, this is the course for you. In these 8 weeks you’ll get an in depth understanding of the foundations of ayurveda that will serve you and your family for the rest of your life, for only $333.

1 Thing I wish I had done as a new mom

7 years ago today, I became a mother.

Reflecting on the immense changes that motherhood brought to my life, I can say it has:

• Cracked my heart wide open to new depths of love I never knew were possible

• Reminded me how to be silly and playful

• Taught me greater patience, mediation skills, and empathy

• Showed me places in myself that needed love and healing

These are the greatest gifts of parenting. Now that my boy is 7, and so capable, independent, and smart, I can also reflect on those first couple years when he was so needy of my time, caretaking, and energy. When I was equally enamored with my adorable baby, exhausted from lack of sleep, frustrated by constantly having my attention pulled in many directions, and overwhelmed with trying to balance mom life with my need to express myself through my work and creative passions.

Everyone told me, “nap when he naps”, and I thought, “yeah right, I have things to do”. They told me, “they grow up so fast, be present now” and I thought, “I know AND I’ve got a lot of things I want to BE in addition to being a mom.” The consequences of trying so hard to be supermom, super householder, and super business woman were adrenal fatigue, overwhelm, and insomnia, and I am STILL doing the work to rebalance my nervous system. SEVEN YEARS LATER.

If there is one thing I wish I could have done differently, one thing I really wish I could tell new moms, it’s this: It is true that it goes by in a flash and you don’t want to miss it. It is true that just for this one time in your life, you get to be the world to a child who really needs your complete presence. But being there for your child at this time is NOT the only reason to be present. You get to play this star role not just in your child’s life, but in YOUR OWN life. Enjoy it, not only because your baby will grow up so fast. Don’t rush back to reclaiming the parts of you that you have needed to sacrifice because, THIS: your OWN nervous system, your OWN body, your OWN being needs you to fully be present for this chapter in YOUR LIFE. To witness your OWN growth and development in this new context. To pay attention to your OWN body’s signs of needing rest, nourishment, and caretaking. To nourish your OWN being with your attention, food, and love. (If you know a new mom, forward this email!)

So many new moms, myself included, end up with seriously depleted bodies, nervous systems, and hearts by trying to be everything at once. Our world rewards achievement while downplaying the gifts and sacrifices of the most incredible and important job in the world. Ayurveda recognizes how lack of rest, nourishment, and care for mothers leads to post-partum depression, depletion, and exhaustion in the short term (vata aggravation), which in the long term leads to chronic illness and disease. (Those of us who don’t have young children at home can really support our entire world by looking for ways to lend a hand to parents of little ones.)

Leo turns 7 today and I am so grateful. Grateful for his beautiful soul and love, and grateful for all the support I’ve gotten from my husband, my family, and my community. And grateful for the privilege of studying ayurveda and the many, many ways it has helped me come back to equilibrium.

Learning your body’s individual nature, needs, and how to best support your long term health are the aims of my next online course, the Ayurveda Deep Dive. Join me on Tuesday evenings in September and October to study the incredible wisdom and science of Ayurveda. Learn your unique MindBody Type, and how to know which diets, herbs, routines and self care practices are the right ones for you. I am offering a $50 discount now through the end of July!

Ayurveda on: Seasonal Allergies

Do you suffer from seasonal allergies?

Allergy season is fast approaching in the northern hemisphere, but if you are someone who suffers, ayurveda has some super helpful tips for you.

(Don’t have time to read the article? Listen to it on my podcast, Your Inner Radiance)

First, what are allergies? Allergies happen when the body decides to see something which is normally harmless as a pathogen and mounts an excessive defense against it. Three types of allergies can cause reactions: food allergies, airborne allergies, and contact allergies. Extra mucous and tears are two of the ways the body tries to push out the supposed invader, particularly to airborne allergies like pollen.

Ayurveda understands that various factors come together to cause allergic reactions in a person. These are a combination of genetics, weak agni (digestive fire), dosha imbalance, and accumulation of ama, or toxins in the body. Ama comes from our environment, stagnant emotions, and poorly digested food. Although we can’t do anything about our genetics, we CAN improve our agni, balance our doshas, reduce ama AND AVOID some of the things that will make congestion worse. A multifaceted approach can help you to alleviate the aggravating and disruptive effects of allergies. According to ayurveda, digestive imbalance is related to the majority of disease, and is most definitely involved in seasonal allergies. When our digestion is optimal and we are processing our food well, we are also best aligned to process all the other things life throws at us.

Here are some ayurvedic approaches to boost your digestive fire, correct dosha imbalance, and cleanse yourself of ama to reduce seasonal allergies:

1. Ideally, when winter transitions to spring, we do an ayurvedic cleanse to reduce the heaviness accumulated in winter and clear out the digestive tract, especially the liver. This will reduce the intensity of allergies when pollen peaks later in spring and early summer because your digestive organs will be freshly tuned and ready to deal with the allergens. If you missed it this year, it’s not too late to do it now! Cleansing protocols are based on the individual’s dosha.

2. During spring, focus on kapha reducing foods: Kapha is one of the three doshas that when aggravated causes stickiness, dullness, and heaviness in the body. Avoid heavy and cold foods and drinks including cheese, cream sauces, processed foods, fried foods, leftovers, iced drinks, and red meat, as these can dull your digestion and cause ama to build up. Focus on fresh steamed vegetables, especially greens, fruits, light grains like oats, quinoa, brown rice, barley, and cous cous, legumes like lentils and mung beans, plenty of digestive spices, and small amounts of olive oil, ghee, and avocado oil.

3. Kindle your agni by using digestive spices in your meals such as cinnamon, pepper, cumin, fennel, saffron, turmeric, basil, and small amounts of cayenne.

4. Try an agni deepana (digestive kindling) preparation before meals such as a slice of fresh ginger with a squeeze of lime and dash of salt, a teaspoon of trikatu with a spoonful of honey, or a digestive tea such as chai or cumin-coriander-fennel.

5. Mother earth provides cleansing herbs this time of year to support us with detoxification, particularly the lovely dandelion. Make dandelion green juice and try dandelion in tinctures.

6. Use a neti pot in the morning and evening: add a 1/2 teaspoon of pure non-iodized salt to a cup of warm filtered water and rinse each nostril. This loosens up sticky sinuses and clears out allergens and pathogens in the mucous membranes.

7. About 30 minutes after using the neti pot, squeeze of few drops of nasya oil into each nostril and inhale. (Skip during active sinus infections to avoid spreading the infection deeper.)

8. Support your agni and reduce ama with the herbal formula triphala: a classic combo of three fruits amalaki, haritaki, and bibhitaki.

9. During times of excessive pollen in the air and congestion in your sinuses, do herbal nasal steaming by simmering a small amount of water in a pot with some sinus clearing herbs or essential oils such as eucalyptus, camphor, and white thyme. Sit over the pot for 5 minutes with a towel over your head, breathing deeply (close your eyes!).

10. Exercise regularly to boost your agni and burn away ama. Morning and evening walks, jogging, yoga, dancing, hiking, biking, martial arts, weights, and fitness classes.

11. Practice pranayama, intentional breathing, such as nadi shodana (channel purifying breath), bastrika (bellows breath), and kapalabhati (skull shining breath).

I’d love to support you to find the best individual approach to your health! Let’s do an ayurvedic wellness consult, online or in Mancos.

How to Choose a Yoga Teacher Training

When I was 22 I decided to become a yoga teacher. I was in love with how yoga made me feel and envisioned myself sharing the practice. At that time, I chose a training based on convenience: it fit with my schedule and budget and location. I didn’t really think much about what it offered and how it compared to other YTTs out there.

Fast forward 16 years, and now I know that all yoga teacher trainings are not created equal. There are a vast variety of YTTs available to choose from. By luck or by fate, I happened to choose a high quality training that was rich in lineage and gave me a very solid foundation. However, as the years progressed, I started to realize the style of yoga I was really drawn to and resonated with was quite different from the style I trained in. I love organic, intuitive, creative, flowing movement combined with breathwork, reverence, chanting, and meditation. This is why about 7 years subsequent to my first training, I did a second 200-hour training in Prana Vinyasa, which is still the kind of yoga I most resonate with and suits my personality and needs.

Over the years, I have heard friends rave about and rag about their yoga teacher training. So now when someone asks me about choosing a YTT, I really try to impress upon them the importance of taking the time to learn what you resonate with, and then look for a training that suits you. This starts with taking classes from a lot of different teachers until you really know what feels good to you, and what you don't really connect with.

Additionally, here are some really important questions to consider when choosing a training:

Who are the teachers and what are their accreditations?

In addition to finding a style that you resonate with, make sure you specifically resonate well with the main trainer or trainers. Even within one style of yoga, you'll find a broad array of nuances depending on the teacher. For example, I LOVE Prana Vinyasa, but there are certain Prana vinyasa teachers I truly love to take classes from, and some that I just don't have the same kind of personal connection with. And, in addition to resonating with their style of being and style of teaching, it's a good idea to look into what kind of and how much teaching experience the trainers have and what trainings they've taken.

What is the program's lineage?

If you find you like a style or a teacher, find out about their lineage. Remember that yoga comes from India and has been passed down through many different lineages as well as has evolved along the way. If you want to learn in a way that honors yoga's roots and pays reverence to the teachers and modalities it comes from, make sure the training you are considering has a culture of honoring these roots, as well as embracing the wisdom that evolution brings.

What is the Content and Focus?

It's important to look for the content and teaching objectives intended for your training. If the website does not list many, or you ask and don't get much of an answer, this is probably not a good sign. A teacher training that lacks a well-thought out plan and structure could prove to be very disappointing. It doesn't take THAT much to be accredited as a yoga teacher trainer, to be honest, although gratefully the standards were recently reviewed and updated and so yoga teacher trainings approved by Yoga Alliance are now subject to stricter standards. Also, the content and focus of various yoga teacher trainings varies widely. For example, some trainings are very alignment based and spend a lot of time in teaching very specific postural techniques. Some trainings are very workout focused and spend a lot of time on the physical practice but not much time on the many other facets of yoga such as philosophy, mantra, lifestyle, meditation, or pranayama. Some trainings focus on a very specific set of postures that the teacher is trained to teach in every class without variation, other trainings have varying degrees of creativity. Some trainings have a very particular focus, such as yin, ashtanga, kids yoga, restorative, prenatal, trauma informed, and more.

What is the format?

Are the 200 hours done all at once in a 3 week immersion? Or are they spread out across weeks or months? Having experienced both types, I can say that neither is better, but there are things to keep in mind about each. The immersive experience is life-changing in its own way because you get to take 3 weeks away from your usual responsibilities and habits and practice living the yoga lifestyle in a very structured way, doing yoga and meditation all day, getting up early, going to bed early, probably being fed a very healthy vegetarian diet, being surrounded by people who are all on a very high frequency with similar intentions as you. It can work well for some people who don't have major work responsibilities or young children at home, and it can be an amazing way to break some bad habits and start new ones. In my experience I felt absolutely amazing afterwards, living on a high that lasted for a couple weeks after the training but slowly diffused as I entered the real world and lost a lot of the habits I'd been practicing during the training. In contrast, my second training experience was spread out over 6 months, one full weekend each month. I realized during this experience the benefit of having time to practice and integrate the knowledge I was gaining. It is pretty challenging to retain a ton of new information when taken in a short amount of time, unless you have an absolutely incredible memory. I found the 6-month format to have a more lasting impact on my habits, my lifestyle, and my knowledge and understanding of the many facets of yoga. For a lot of people with regular daily work and family commitments, this format is a lot more accessible too, plus usually, you can work out a payment plan spread out over the months of the training rather than pay all at once for the 3-week immersion.

Is it Yoga Alliance approved?

I mentioned before about what it takes for a yoga school or teacher trainer to be accredited. I was referring to the most well-known and generally well-respected governing body for yoga teacher trainings at least in America, Yoga Alliance. Although it's a free world and anyone could offer YTT without Yoga Alliance accreditation, if you are thinking about teaching in a yoga studio after graduation, yoga studios these days will probably want to see that your training is approved by Yoga Alliance because they will know that there has been some oversight into the content and structure of your training that they can trust. I am aware that there are other organizations accrediting yoga teacher trainings, but as far as 200-hour trainings go, at least in the US, Yoga Alliance is definitely the most well known and generally most well thought of.

Is it in person or online?

This question is one I can hardly believe I have to include because I personally have a big issue with online yoga teacher training. Yes it has been done, and some people who lead them or who have done them give them good reviews, but to me it’s obvious that trying to learn to teach yoga on a computer has major limitations. Yoga is such a nuanced, energetic, sensitive practice, meant to reconnect us to what is true and real. Spending 200 hours in front of a screen, without any physical connection with your teacher, any physical feedback for adjusting your or your student's posture, just lacks so much depth. Not to mention, one of the most beautiful parts of a yoga teacher training are the friendships you make with your classmates and personal relationship you develop with your teachers, which is naturally going to be very constrained in a virtual program. Granted, during the pandemic, many people had to make do with online events because it was the only way most people could connect, but I am truly hoping that this temporary solution dissolves and we get back to real, live, community-oriented connection with each other.

How many students?

A final point I'd like to make is considering the size of your training group. A huge class size means less connection with your teachers, less time to get your questions answered, and less chance of having your teachers give you personal feedback. Large group events also make it generally harder to maintain a relaxed, balanced nervous system state, ideal for retaining information, forming connections, and staying vital and healthy. Personally I like to keep my trainings small for these reasons.

So hopefully you have some good points to ponder and keep in mind if you are now or find yourself in the future looking into become a yoga teacher and choosing a yoga teacher training. I highly recommend yoga teacher training for anyone who is interested in deepening their practice and experience of the yoga lifestyle, whether it is with the intention to teach or simply for deep personal transformation.

I'm currently gearing up to lead a 200 hour Prana Vinyasa Yoga Teacher Training from June to October, and I highly suggest anyone who considers joining it take classes with me and or have a conversation with me to really make sure that this particular training is right for them. I don't recommend it for everyone and I celebrate the diverse array of people and training options out there. If I honestly feel like a person would be better suited to a different type of training, I will tell them that and make another suggestion for them. I want the people who join my trainings to be truly happy they did because this style, this format, my presence and the presence of my guest teachers really resonates with them and their values. So if you are interested please reach out and and let's chat!

Please note that I am offering a BIPOC and teacher scholarship for this training, and also offer payment plans and am willing to consider trades.

It's Kapha Season! Time to Lighten Up

Unless you’re on the southern side of this planet, you are probably now in the season of late winter moving into early spring, which in Ayurveda is considered deep kapha time. Because kapha is the energy of structure and lubrication, made of earth and water, it is the heaviest, densest, dampest, stickiest time of the year. It’s a time we may all start to feel sluggish in our digestion, congested in our heads, heavy after eating warm and dense winter food all season, and really ready for the warmth of spring and summer to lighten us up.

Ayurveda suggests some valuable seasonal practices we can do in this time to burn away the stagnation accumulated all winter, revitalize our mind and bodies, and shift into the blossoming, energetic, thriving activity of spring.

• Lighten up your diet: go easy on the ghee and oil (but don’t avoid them). Minimize heavy foods like red meat, cream, and cheese. Switch from heavy grains like wheat and refined white rice, to light ones like quinoa and brown rice.

• Consider a spring cleanse: An ayurvedic cleanse starts with several days of eliminating things like wheat, sugar, meat, and dairy, and then 3-7 days of eating light stews and soups like kitchari, lentils and steamed veggies, veggie broths and digestive teas. On the final day, taking ghee or castor oil to totally clean out your digestive tract is recommended for people with strong enough constitutions. Follow up with gradually and gently reintroducing easy to digest foods before resuming your regular diet. (Spring time cleanse program coming soon!)

• Heat up with movement: Now is the time to shake off the sluggishness and cold of winter with invigorating movement and heating activities such as hot yoga, jogging, dance, and getting outside during the bright and warm part of the day for brisk walks.

• Kapalabhati (Skull Shining Breath) is very effective at warming the body, boosting the metabolism, and lifting the spirit. Method: Start seated comfortably. It can help to have a hand on your belly when learning, noticing your hand moving in towards your spine as you exhale. Take a deep breath in and out. Then let your inhale come in naturally about 3/4 of the way in. Exhale strongly by engaging the abdominals and diaphragm muscles, feeling your belly push towards to spine to expel the air in your lungs. Start with 10 cycles, repeating 3-4 times. With practice, extend the number of breath cycles. Always rest or slow down if you start to feel discomfort, cramps, or dizziness. When you practice, visualize your skull filling with a bright light. Not for pregnant women or those with high blood pressure, heart disease, or abdominal pain.

• Dress in warm layers and bright warm, colors like yellow, red, and orange. Don’t get fooled by seemingly warm temps and catch a chill outside. It’s still cold out there so bring a jacket and accessories!

• Try Dry Brushing: use a loofah or body brush to vigorously brush your entire body, unless you are very dry or suffering from any kind of skin rash or condition.

• Herbs and spices best for this season include: cumin, ginger, turmeric, coriander, basil, ashwaganda, tulsi, pippali, pepper, dandelion, and bibhitaki.

Remember, these are all general suggestions, and may need to be adjusted for some people depending on your situation and BodyMind Type.

As an Ayurvedic Wellness Coach, I help my clients understand their BodyMind Type and address root causes of pain, anxiety, and disease, with nutrition, lifestyle, embodiment, herbs & mindset, to bring greater balance, wholeness, and radiance.

Ayurveda is a system of natural, individualized health, originating in India, that has been practiced for thousands of years. With the support of an Ayurvedic Wellness Coach you can begin your unique journey to wholeness through achieving balance in the body, mind and spirit. By changing your lifestyle and living more harmoniously with nature, you will begin to create within your body the optimal environment for healing. To successfully reach goals and make positive changes it is important that you are an active participant on your path to well-being.

The initial Ayurvedic Wellness Intake session (Virtual or in Mancos, CO) is about 60-75 minutes. Ayurveda seeks to find the root causes of any symptoms, and preemptively address imbalances before they manifest as disease. Before our appointment, I ask you to fill out the intake form that asks you to share many aspects of your life. During our appointment, I’ll ask some clarifying questions to determine your prakriti (mind-body type), your current vikruti (imbalance) and share Ayurveda’s multi-modality approach to help bring balance to any imbalances and unveil your optimal state of whole being wellness.

Creative Brain vs Reactive Brain + 5 Actions for Healing a Growth Period

Two weeks ago I concluded an incredible week of the Sacred Sensuality Women’s Retreat. My dad was there all week supporting me by taking care of my son Leo while I was leading sessions. I was practicing in the outdoor yoga pavilion in the morning of our last day when Leo ran in and said he needed help. “Grampa fell down.”

My beloved dad Michael suffered a major stroke that has left major damage in the right side of his brain. He had seriously elevated blood pressure and a severe headache. At first, he was unable to eat due to risk of aspiration. He was unable to feel much on his left side and incapable of most basic functions. After a few days in the hospital, he was stable, conscious, and able to speak, eat, and walk short distances. He is now able to move his arm and hand, and is getting stronger already.

After 10 days in the ICU in San Jose, we flew to Miami, where we took him to see a neurologist. He has more tests scheduled and PT prescribed. He continues to restore some function day by day. The body is an incredibly intelligent and resilient organism. I can practically see the neurons growing between his body and new parts of his brain, just as I can see his smile start to curve up again just a little each day. Although this is a difficult time, it’s also a time of big growth for me. I can feel my resilience growing. I can feel my heart expanding. I am witnessing my capacity for holding space and connecting with others on a healing journey growing. I am grateful.

My mom has been incredibly strong, calm, and there for my dad 100%. It will be a long road but my dad is optimistic and determined to recover! My dad is the most constant and solid force in my life, my rock, and along with my mom, my biggest fan. He is very strong in body and mind and well loved by all his friends and family due to his loving, steady, generous personality. Please hold him in your thoughts and prayers and visualize a miraculous recovery! We know that the brain is very capable of rewiring to make new connections to all parts of his body.

As I navigate the stress, fears and challenges of the weeks after my dad’s stroke, I’ve seen how so many of the things I’ve been studying, practicing, and teaching for years have been truly serving me and my family.

My studies of the nervous system have helped me to regulate my own nervous system state, and to recognize when someone else is dysregulated. Helpful terminology that keeps coming up for me is Creative Brain versus Reactive Brain. When we are stressed, scared, or angry, our sympathetic nervous system is in full gear and we move into Reactive Brain. Our capacity for creative and compassionate thinking is diminished. We become less reasonable and more argumentative. Our thoughts get stuck in the spin cycle and fear dominates. Using mindfulness and embodiment practices helps us downshift into the parasympathetic state, also known as Creative Brain. In Creative Brain we are more easily able to tap into the abundant reserves of energy, insight, love, and universal intelligence, and so respond to challenges creatively and resourcefully.

Practice noticing your own and others’ brain state. In yourself, you can also observe physiological signs: in Reactive Brain you might notice tension in your face, shoulders, stomach and hips. You might notice difficulty taking a deep breath, gripping your fingers, tightness in your chest. In Creative Brain, you’ll notice the opposite: relaxed breathing, relaxed muscles, calm thoughts, soft eyes. In relationship, and in communication, you can notice Reactive Brain in yourself and others when arguments escalate, voices raise, reasoning is reduced, and points are repeated. It’s no use reasoning while in Reactive Brain. This is when you need to tap into your inner wisdom just enough to hit the pause button, and calm yourself or the person you’re with, or walk away.

Another helpful bit of terminology that’s been serving me recently is Growth Period. I choose to consider challenging times as opportunities for personal growth. I can strongly feel the Growth Period I am currently in the midst of. Without this recognition, Growth Periods can just feel yucky, put us into a place of self-pity, and have us wanting to complain to everyone, spreading our misery around. A teacher named Jeffrey Allen taught me 5 important actions you can take when in a Growth Period:

1. Stop blaming. Recognize and turn down the Analyzer in your head.

2. Stop complaining. It’s no use spreading around your pain and misery. Check your negative energy.

3. Recognize and communicate that you’re in the midst of a Growth Period. Let your loved ones know by saying something like, “I’m going through something right now. Please give me space and don’t take it personally.”

4. Ground and connect with creative energy. Use all of your mindfulness and embodiment tools. Ground into the earth, breathe deeply, practice mantra, move your body, connect to your higher self.

5. Practice gratitude and lighten up. Focus on what is good and what you love. Dance, shake, laugh. Watch something funny. Listen to music to shift your energy. Open to creative solutions. Then, apologize if necessary to anyone you’ve hurt.

Another thing that has been serving me endlessly during this trying time is staying committed to my daily self-care practices, including morning hygiene, cleansing protocols, meditation and yoga, mindful eating, herbs, essential oils, sleep routine, and more, everything I’ll be teaching about in the upcoming Ayurveda Virtual Deep Dive that starts THIS THURSDAY.

Now, more than EVER, I feel the importance and responsibility of sharing Ayurveda with anyone who is ready to learn. It is the ultimate preventative medicine. Aligning yourself with this knowledge of life transforms your sense of self-care. The ultimate goal of Ayurveda is to enliven your inner intelligence by balancing your mind and body through an individualized approach to diet, lifestyle, exercise, herbs and more. I will not turn anyone way due to lack of funds so please reach out if your financial situation is the only thing preventing you from signing up. The world needs this information.

Ayurveda for Colds

Tis the season… for catching colds. It’s part of life; a yucky, annoying part of life, but sometimes even healthy people who take good care of themselves get sick, and this time of year colds are spreading like wildfire. What can Ayurveda share about helping us recover when we catch a cold?

According to Ayurveda, our respiratory system, known as Pranavaha Srotas, is the main seat in our body for exchanging cosmic prana with individual prana through the process of breathing. Prana, which comes in not only through the air we breathe but also through the food and also experiences we take in, is more than just oxygen, it is reverberating consciousness. When our Pranavaha Srotas are functioning optimally, meaning the airways are clear, our doshas are balanced, the tissues are healthy, our agni is balanced, and we have minimal ama, we have the best flow of prana in and out, and so our life force is clear and vibrant. When Pranavaha Srotas are compromised, our life force is diminished, which is one of the reasons we feel so lousy when we have a cold.

The lungs and sinuses are actually considered the seat of kapha. Kapha, one of the three doshas, is the energy of lubrication, structure, and cohesion. The lungs are the container for air, which is vata. To hold that air, moisten it, and keep it from drying us out, kapha provides lubrication (membranes, pleural fluid, etc) and structure (trachea, bronchial tubes, aveoli...)

When we catch a cold virus, our Pranavaha Srotas are most affected. Ayurveda explains that colds generally present as an increase in Vata and Kapha doshas. Vata is cold, dry, and rough, so dry coughs and sore throat typically mean vata is vitiated. Kapha is cold, heavy, and wet, and colds with thick mucous and wet coughs are considered kapha-type colds.

In general, COLD is the predominant quality in colds, (duh) whether it is more vata or kapha in nature. There is a principle in Ayurveda called Samanya-Vishesha which means like qualities increase like, and opposites decrease. When you have a cold, you want to apply HEAT. Heat, in many forms, as well as herbs meant to support the respiratory system AND fight off viruses are the main approaches to treatment. Of course, if your symptoms get really bad or you are at high risk for complications, consult your doctor or seek medical care.

I hope the following ayurvedic suggestions will come in handy next time you catch something to complement your other home remedies!

Tend to your agni: your digestion is the first thing to tend to when sick. Your body has to put all its resources into fighting infection, so your digestion will be weaker. Weakened digestion leads to toxic build-up and reduced absorption. Help out your digestive tract by eating cooked, moist, spiced, warm foods like soup, dhal, kitchari, and porridge. (There’s a study out there about how it actually isn’t the chicken in grandma’s chicken soup that helps you when you’re sick, rather it’s because soup is such an easily digestible food). Avoid cold, heavy, dry foods including cheese, milk, ice cream, sodas, dry cereals, and processed or greasy foods. If you want to drink juice or smoothies, add some hot water to take out the chill factor. Take the herbal power trio Triphala at night to support easy digestion and gentle cleansing.

Up your spice intake: In your foods and teas, use a lot of gently warming spices like ginger, cinnamon, clove, cardamom, pepper, basil, and garlic. These heating spices support digestion and are also powerhouses for fighting infection and cutting through cold sticky mucus. If you don’t like them in your food, you can get them in tablet form. I love making tea with ginger, cinnamon, pepper, cloves, cardamom, and then honey (once it’s not scalding hot!).

These herbs will give that virus a kick in the pants: tulsi, neem, echinacea, astragalus, garlic, elderberry, and wild cherry bark are all known for their anti-viral and antibacterial properties. Tulsi, licorice, and wild cherry bark are known across traditions to be especially good for the lungs. (Check to make sure herbs don’t interact poorly with any medications you’re on, particularly if you take blood thinners). Make them into teas, or take them in tablets, tinctures, and syrups.

Honey is your friend: Honey is both heating, nourishing, and antimicrobial, so it’s one sweetener you can feel good about having while you’re sick. It soothes and lubricates sore throats. Mix into cough syrups and teas, just don’t cook it or it becomes toxic! Tip: let your tea water cool till you can stick your finger in it for several seconds before you stir in the honey.

Use steam inhalation: One of the Indian Vaidyas (ayurvedic physician) in my master’s program says that inhaling herbs is the most beneficial treatment for the respiratory system. This is because they will bypass the digestive system and go straight to the problem area. You can add essential oils that are bronchodilators such as eucalyptus, ravintsara, thyme, peppermint, pine, camphor and clove to a pot of steaming water and lean over it for several minutes, (close your eyes and put a towel over your head and the pot). Keeping an essential oil diffuser going with these oils in the room you spend the most time in is also really helpful. You can also rub the oils in a carrier oil directly onto your chest (just like good old Vics).

Rest, but move a little every day: Obviously, when you’re sick you should rest, but how often do we ignore what we know because we think we just can’t afford it? If possible, try to cancel your other engagements and stay home. You’ll get better quicker and not spread the illness around. But don’t get stuck on the couch ALL day. Spend a little time doing simple, gentle stretches and undulating movements to keep prana and lymph flowing in your body. You’ll help the lymphatic system do its job: move lymph to trap toxins and get rid of them.

Do some Lymphatic Massage: Speaking of lymph, your lymphatic system doesn’t have a pump like your cardiovascular system. It moves through your movement and also through manual manipulation (ie massage). Some of the most important places to pay attention to are the nodes on the sides of your neck, under your armpits, at your groins and behind your knees.

Give yourself a pep talk: If you are down for the count, stuck at home for days and feeling lousy, everything in your life can start to feel like crap. Remind yourself this is temporary, and that it’s just a part of the cycle of life. Give your body lotsa love and gratitude for working so hard to heal you! You will recover soon, and once you do, your immune system will be boosted after all that effort it extended to fight this virus.