Well, I definitely felt an increase in Vata today. My body was a little achy from the demands of last night’s show and overall I felt more tired than usual. I opted out of yoga to give my muscles a break and I waited until the evening to meditate. In retrospect it would have been better to go ahead and do my meditation in the morning. I would have felt more centered for the day.
My plan was to keep things simple today but I got wrapped up in tidying up my house. All that movement and expending of energy caused the Vata to rise and by early afternoon I was feeling like I needed to take a little power nap.
I ended up getting an unexpected call from a client which required me to do some traveling to meet with them in the evening. Again, more Vata. I kind of made matters worse by meeting my client at Starbucks and I ordered a hot, soy Chai tea that contributed to my state of Vata. You see, Starbuck’s Chai teas have caffeine in them and that’s usually too much stimulation for a Vata-Pitta body type with a Vata imbalance. When I drove home I felt the caffeine buzz and I didn’t like it.
When my husband got home from work, I was already back home and busy making dinner. He noticed the Vata right away because I was talking incessantly. Thankfully, I made a very grounding meal of Biryiani with mint coconut sauce. Biriyani is a spiced, rice and mung bean dish with raisons, pistachios and carrots. It definitely helped my Vata craziness.
After dinner I asked my husband to do some passive stretching of my legs that were still aching from last night which also helped to relax and ground me. We followed it up with a 30 minute meditation. Before bed I decided to do another self massage to relax my body/mind. My only problem was I had an upset stomach, most likely from the caffeinated Chai tea.
I found myself waking up in the night still feeling my upset stomach. At about three in the morning I got up and decided to put a heating pad on my belly. This helped a little but I knew it was more than physical. There was some emotional cause to my stomach issue. I realized that I had judged myself harshly for drinking that Chai and the guilt over having some caffeine turned to poison in my belly.
In Ayurveda, we do something called Tarpana. It’s an emotional cleansing where we call forth family members or others we have special relationships with in our minds eye and we “speak” to them. We talk to them as if they are right there with us and we say all of the unsaid words. It’s a time of emotional release and letting go. It’s also a time for us to forgive. I recognized I needed to forgive myself for judging my caffeine consumption.
As I breathed into my belly and imagined my higher self sitting in front of me hearing everything I needed to say to myself, I realized that I am my harshest critic and I often treat others with more compassion than I treat myself. I made a renewed commitment to love myself more completely, to refrain from judging myself and to treat myself with the same loving kindness I treat others. After that the pain in my stomach magically disappeared and I was able to go back to sleep.
Again I say, I am so blessed and grateful to have the knowledge and understanding of Ayurveda and the fortitude to use its principles to heal myself. We all have the ability to heal ourselves, the power is within us. Its day 18 and today I’ve experienced an awakening and a sense of forgiveness. I’ve discovered that I love myself and I want to be kind to me. What a concept.
For more information on Vata body types visit http://www.joytreeinc.com/page/168184205
To learn more about your own metabolic body type take the body type quiz at http://www.joytreeinc.com/page/179030203
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