What is Ayurveda?!

Most of you are probably like…”ummmm….what is Ayurveda?!” “How do you pronounce that?” 

Pronounced AYE-YOUR-VAY-DA with an accent on the VAY. Ayur, meaning life and Veda, meaning knowledge. Ayurveda literally means “the knowledge of life.” It’s a science of how to live YOUR life in the best possible way.

Ayurveda is a holistic, complex and comprehensive medical AND spiritual system that merges the mind, body and spirit. Mixing oral and written instruction, philosophy, mythology, spirituality and scientific knowledge. As my teacher Katie Silcox says “It is a highly evolved folk medicine and tradition – simple yet profound, mundane but magical.”

Our lives today are so vastly different from the ancient lives that were embedded in the practice of Ayurveda. Over 5,000 years old if not even older. This knowledge was written in the Upavedas which are like secondary teachings to the Vedas. It’s the sister science to yoga, yoga also being rooted in the Vedas. The Vedas are the oldest spiritual texts of ancient India. The teachings are considered to be humanity’s most ancient healing science. The foundation for modern medicine. You know Ayurveda has the oldest successful surgery practices. That’s pretty wild to think about, successful operations happening thousands of years ago without any modern technology to assist. 

Ayurveda is an honoring of the earth, a reconnection to momma. It’s getting back to basics.  In Ayurveda, we believe that everything is provided for us by mother nature. We look at each person INDIVIDUALLY and HOLISTICALLY. What you eat, what you watch, what you spend your time doing, the thoughts you have, how stressed you are, the lotion you use, how hydrated you are – EVERYTHING you do in your life dramatically affects your health. 

Practiced globally, Ayurveda is the feminine approach to health and medicine. Now, I know,  Western Medicine is 1008% needed. Western medicine saves my husband’s life, a Type 1 Diabetic, everyday with the invention of insulin. Western Medicine fixed my blind eyes, Lasik literally gave me my sight back. I mean we need it. It’s amazing and incredible and powerful and life saving. 100008% BUT I challenge that Western Medicine’s strength is in helping acute illness. Ayurvedic Medicine gets to the root of the acute illness. What is CAUSING this to happen and how can we heal and prevent it? That’s Ayurveda. 

Western Medicine is like “Tell me what hurts, I’ll fix it.”  Ayurvedic Medicine is like “What are you going through? I’ll sit with you.”

Ayurveda is the path to or more of a remembrance of WHO YOU TRULY ARE. It’s the question, WHO AM I? 

In Sanskrit the word is Svastha (svaaa-sstaa) Sva meaning who you really are and stha meaning to be stable in. Svastha “to be stable in who you truly are.” Knowing who you are, no matter where you are. Ayurveda is compassionate and empathic. It’s deeply and intimately getting to know yourself. It’s a philosophy and approach to wellness that holds self-awareness as the essence and foundation of good health. 

Ayurveda helps the healthy person to maintain health, and the dis-eased person to regain health. It is a medical-metaphysical healing life-science, the mother of all healing arts. The practice of Ayurveda is designed to promote human happiness, health and creative growth. By syncing back with the cycles of nature, we can profoundly heal, cultivating compassion and kindness not only for ourselves but for the greater good.  

My intention for this site is to be a resource for you to integrate Ayurvedic practices into your daily life. Taking ancient wisdom and simplifying it for our complex modern lives. These are my understandings of the teachings and my studies. This practice has reminded me of who I am, I feel more at home in myself than I ever have before. YOU deserve to feel this way too.

There’s SO MUCH to share my friends, SO MUCH, my heart is exploding with excitement and love.

Thanks for being on this journey with me.

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Morning Routine: Ayurvedic Dinacharya