The Dragontree

I was first introduced to Ayurveda by a girlfriend while attending massage school.  She was super excited about Ayurvedic nutrition and aromatherapy, but the way she presented it was not appealing to me at all.  She begged me to go to college in Ayurveda with her in California, and I continuously declined.  I had no interest; it seemed like just another typing system.

After I graduated massage school I started working in my own practice as well as working at a local spa. My co-workers at the spa expanded my thinking around massage, acupuncture, herbs, and . . . Ayurveda.  It was one little tidbit from a book I was lent that made me fall in love.  It said something to the extent of, “The underlying fundamental principle in Ayurveda is that we’re all perfect and complete.  All ailments, mental, physical, and emotional, are additions to our perfection, not reductions of it.”

This spoke deeply to me because I loved the idea that we are all whole, perfect beings and that when we are experiencing illness of any sort, we are having something more, but that that something isn’t us and doesn’t define us.

Considering that most of us struggle with deep rooted thoughts that hinder our ability to really shine, like “I’m not good enough,” or “There’s something wrong with me,” and in a world where having a physical sickness is seen as being weak or broken, a system of medicine that holds the certainty of our wholeness, of our enough-ness, of our perfection, is a special thing.  And it feels true to me.

In a clinical setting, this has informed everything I do with my patients.  When I have someone that is suffering from depression, we look at this as something to be cleared away so their true essence can be lived.  When someone with insomnia comes to see me, I try to understand what has been taken on, and then use herbs, food, and lifestyle changes to melt away these factors.  If I have a client who wants to reach the next level in their business, but is struggling to do so, we investigate to find what the underlying thoughts are that are blocking the ability to fully express their greatness, and we uproot them.

In your daily life, consider all the areas where you feel “less than” or “broken” and see if you can shift your perspective to being curious what about what you might be carrying around that isn’t actually part of the authentic You.

In some cases it’s very straightforward.  When you are sick in bed with a cold, you likely feel weak and horrible, and if you’re anything like me you may find it hard to remember what it feels like to be healthy.  The addition here is obviously the bacteria or virus that’s in your system, and removing that – while bolstering your intrinsic wellness – will allow your naturally healthy state to reappear.

But what if you’re feeling chronically tired?  In this state it is so easy to feel like there is something fundamentally wrong with you, something is broken or missing.  Explore the idea, or just entertain the notion, that in fact, underneath that exhaustion, your sparkle and zest exist – still intact.  From this perspective, rather than needing to figure out and add what is missing, or to fix what is broken, one’s task becomes to clear away the elements that are obscuring the expression of this fundamental zest.  It opens up possibilities way outside the box of our lack-based thinking and mainstream medical approaches.

I encourage you to always come back to this: you are perfect.  And remember that those around us are perfect beings as well.  The more that we model this perspective for each other, the more we will be able to release what isn’t serving us and shine as a species.

Love,

Briana and Everyone At The Dragontree