Ayurveda says prajñaparadha is the root cause of all disease and the translation of that is crimes against wisdom, or when you ignore your own inner knowing, because you know that you needed this thing, but you chose to do that thing because some other voice said that would be more fun or that would be more pleasurable and then it goes on.

I started having these really insane stomach pains when I was about 18 maybe, just like lots of pain, like I would be doubled over just in agony and I remember the embarrassment of being out with friends and wondering, “I’m going to have to go home again and I’ll have to leave dinner again. I’ll have to say goodbye to everybody and go home and get in bed and just kind of wait for this thing to pass.” That was when I really started to realize though that I need to figure this out on my own, because nobody could really tell me anything beyond “You have IBS.” “Oh, you have an ulcer and here’s this medication that stops your stomach acid.” “Okay. Well, what will that do?” The pain didn’t go away.

So started looking into that and just started discovering that the standard doctors that I was going to wouldn’t be able to help me with that. So that really started my investigation and my research into what does it mean to be healthy and what will it take?

So I’m making ghee and ghee is clarified butter. It has so many amazing properties, really rejuvenating and nourishing for all the seven tissues of the body. Ayurveda recognizes seven different tissues, all the way from blood plasma to nerves and bones, so kind of going through the layers of the body, and it nourishes all, which not very many things do. Ayurveda talks a lot about anything that we take in any way through our senses, through our digestive system, it all has to be digested and processed and assimilated and anything that isn’t is perhaps emotional trauma or perhaps it’s physical toxin that manifests in different ways, but it has to either leave the body or be processed and assimilated other ways, it just hangs around and it’s not supportive.

So for me, this medicine helps me to clear the channels of anything that’s been hanging around that’s not been digested. Especially being the age that I am, being an older mom, I don’t do these practices just because I think they’re fun. I do the practices that I do because that’s what keeps me feeling good. I have to treat myself in a very specific way to feel good.

Hey, whether you call it Ayurveda or not, it’s a long term plan, it’s a lifestyle. It’s a way of caring for yourself and taking care of yourself more than, “Okay, I’m going to adopt these practices and do this for a while and then I’ll see what’s next,” because that’s perhaps a dilettante mindset that a lot of Americans are in because there’s so many things big thrown at us and offered to us all the time. So you have less time, you have less energy.

It becomes that much more important to find time for self-care. So being really creative and sneaky is important. I’ll refer to my teacher, Dr. Lad, because one of the things that he says is that we have all these layers and sometimes these layers can get in our way, the layers of trauma, the layers of lack, the layers of craving, the layers of aversion, all the things that kind of drive us through life, and when we can find a path to clear those things away, we have nothing left, but I am, simply that I am.

Ayurveda means the science of life, it’s coming from ancient texts and there is a prescribed set of principles and practices. To me, Ayurveda is an umbrella in that any practice that brings balance can be Ayurvedic. So we all have within us the power to be our own healer in that way too. The wisdom is there, it’s about whether you listen to it. When you listen to it, that’s when you’re on the path to balance, which becomes the path of wholeness, the path of health.

You get to a certain point in your own studies and helping yourself that you’re like, “Well, I really have a responsibility now because I’ve been gifted this knowledge, this information, this medicine, and I have to offer it back now.” You can’t just hold onto it for yourself.