Heart Full

I was dubious when we were introduced to the doshas — an Ayurvedic system that (in loose terms) identifies your constitution. It sounded a lot like the gunas to me — the tendencies. And I’m still not 100% clear on exactly what the differences are between the two. But we got a thorough introduction to the doshas, and just like our teacher promised once explained the system “just makes sense“. I discovered that at this point in my life I am Kapha Vata. Meaning my primary dosha is Kapha — think 1st and 2nd Chakra — earth and water — I’m cold, heavy, wet, dense and oily. My Vata side is air, lightness — think quick, spontaneous, but dry and rough. In many ways my two sides are opposites. When my Kapha is out of balance i have phlegm, I sleep excessively and I’m practically immobile. I can’t count the number of times when my husband came home from a full day and was shocked to realize I had laid in bed ALL day, watching the entire first, second, and third season of Lost, only to decide after watching all of that … that I didn’t really like the series. On the other hand when my vata is effective, there’s never too many things for me to multi-task. If the vata gets out of balance, I become obsessed and I don’t sleep. And this can last for days, everyone from my room mate in college to my neighbor has asked me, “how do you operate without sleep?!” and I usually answer, “there’s too much to do.” But I know these are the times I’m running on empty.
Suddenly, all of these crazy habits of mine could be explained in a non-mysterious “it’s just you” kind of way.  Plus, Ayurveda didn’t just make sense of my habits but my thought process. Our teacher gave the example of a vata process, “you start searching for a song on iTunes, but get distracted by other cool songs, and then the song reminds you of something else you have to do so you start doing that … next thing you know it’s 3am and you haven’t completed anything you wanted to…” It sounded all too familiar to me — because that thought process is EXACTLY like mine, except one small difference. I don’t forget what it was I was originally doing. So even if I do get distracted by another cool song, I still make sure to download the original song, and if I abandon my downloads for another errand, I complete that errand and return to iTunes. I’m compulsive about crossing off items on my to-do list. And they don’t get crossed off until they’re done.

This all makes sense to me now! I make sense to ME now, which is the true gift of the session.

But Ayurveda is more than just identifying your constitution — it’s actually a lifestyle. I learned that due to my Kapha nature I should eat light, but “warming” foods — to get me up and going. I’m hard to get moving. Once I’m down be it on my bed or in svasana, I may not get up without prodding. I’m the annoying room mate that had 3 alarm clocks because sometimes I wouldn’t hear just the one, and in svasana — I’m the yogi that actually fell asleep.

I feel like the way I did when I first got glasses .. suddenly I can see, and I can’t stop reading!