Ayurveda Self Care Practices for Women.

Let's start with some really beautiful, simple self care practices for women. Find, ease, flow and abundance with India's Ancient Healing Wisdom.

What is Ayurveda?

Ayurveda ‘wisdom of life’; it’s the traditional healing system of India that has been used for thousands of years to help people live balanced, healthy lives. The main focus is to promote health, prolong life and eliminate disease. 

I love the way Ayurveda asks us to use nature to help us understand ourselves. It encourages us to live in harmony with nature and eat with the seasons.

According to Ayurveda, we are made up of a combination of five elements – water, fire, air and space. These elements combine in humans to form three ‘Doshas’ or what some people call constitutions – Vata, Pitta and Kapha.

• Vata is a combination of air and space.
• Pitta is a mixture of fire and water
• In Kaphas, earth and water form a duo.

a sacred outlook

Life is not happening to you, rather, you are in control of how you experience the moments that make up your life. Once you start to live in this knowledge your life will begin to flow and be filled with postive synchronicities and blessings; you will experience the sacred in even the most mundane occasions.

sadhana

Sadhana means 'conscious spiritual practice' it's more about what's going on in the inside rather than what you're doing on the outside. It's about making even the mundane magic.

For example you can rush around and drink you tea getting ready & rushing or you can sip it mindfully.

Sadhana can be applied to anything you do that is uplifting and elevates your intention beyond the mundane or selfish.

bhakti

Bhakti is the practice of true, loving devotion, getting closer to God.

Narada was an enlightened sage from ancient times who offered his scared teachings in kirtan, devotional song. Theses teachings remind us that progress on the spiritual path is not all up to us, swaha.

• Worshipping state of mind (puja): the ritual or our connection to the Divine through sacred action.
• Praying state of mind; conversation with the Divine.
• Meditative state of mind; start to move from a state of longing into a deeper state of connection. Effort to Grace.
• Mind merging with the divine; no effort and is the manifestation of grace arising.

shakti

Shakti is the divine feminine energy of the Goddess - the Mother, the energy that powers all creation on earth. We, as women, are Mother Nature reincarnated. Divine Goddesses.

We can connect to our divine wild feminine energy through prana (breath, life force), getting into nature, gardening, trusting our inner wisdom that has been passed down our ancestral path.

Powerful, yet soft and expansive.

dharma

Dharma is your unique life path, your true calling in this lifetime; the skills and gifts you have to offer into the world. 

The most important service we can all offer to the world is to authentically uncover and then passionately follow your dharma in this lifetime.

Sometimes our dharma unfolds in unexpected ways and other times it's something that's a lot more obvious to you and to others.

dinacharya

Dinacharya (daily rituals) are the heart of the Ayurvedic lifestyle… they lay the foundations for a healthy & productive day ensuring that the body & mind are nourished and nurtured.

The goal of dinacharya is to support the body, mind and spirit to find balance, to remove built up toxins, (ama), from the body and maintain a healthy agni (digestive fire). According to ayurveda these toxins are the cause of dis-ease.

In addition to the below self-care practices, I have found rising with the sun, maintaining a daily spiritual practice and getting to be before 10pm highly beneficial in my energy levels and clarity of mind.

• Tongue Cleaning
• Garshana - Dry Body Brushing
• Abhyanga - Self Massage

Spiritual Practices

A mirror is meant to perfectly reflect our image when we look into it. But if it's covered with dust the image will be clouded or distorted, or we might not see ourselves at all. The mind is like a mirror. Over the years, we have allowed it to become covered in the dust of misconceptions, desires and fear. All these are born of a false sense of who we are. When we look into that mirror, we mainly see dust. Worse, we think the dust distorted image is a true reflection of ourselves.

Meditation on mantra helps us clean the mental mirror so we can see something true about ourselves - the pure soul we really are. As the mind clears, the fog of misconception fades, and the natural qualities of the soul emerge. We begin to feel the love that's inherent within us....

~Radhanath Swami

My trusted practices:

• Japa Meditation
• Blessing Prayer from my Teacher's Book Mindful Living
• Nadi Shodhana - alternate nostril breathing

I offer 1:1 Ayurveda Wellness Coaching and I'd love to work with you to to heal, live and work beautifully well so that you can be your most amazing, vibrant self!

You are multi-faceted divine being, Mother Earth reincarnated. I will take your hand and guide you towards living the life that you were sent here to live. You will deepen your connection to the wild feminine within, bringing yourself home to find your true nature. Guided by the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda, inner wisdom and modern day strategy. Kick your life's goals, deepen your spiritual practice and live in alignment.

Please share the wisdom of Ayurveda Self Care Practices for Women with those who would also benefit.