Over the last few years I have experienced the real benefit in routine and natural rhythms. Prior to 2020 I was traveling full time “home-free” for about 4 or 5 years. Every day looked different, every week was a different location and while I had my morning and evening rituals it’s only since being grounded in Bali that I realize how much ease comes through relating to time from one place. 

Some people are in the yoga teaching game for the long haul. Some people do a YTT, teach for a year or two then move on. Some people do a YTT and never teach a public class. Some people never do a YTT and are the best in the biz. It’s not everybody's path to be actively teaching year in year out, rain hail or shine but if it is you, read on for my musings on keeping the Passion alive after 15 years in the game. 

It’s not just that social media serves up the highlight reel of everyone's life. Even if you exclusively follow creators who you feel to be authentic, inspiring, intentional, positive etc, it’s the format itself that is affecting us and throwing all the doshas into a tailspin. 

It was as I lay in bed (scrolling) with my toddler napping beside me thatI learned that Sally Kempton has left this earthly realm. She is one of the great Teachers of our time, in the tradition of tantra and bhakti and in Life. 

Understanding the ups and downs of our digestive system, known in Ayurveda as our digestive fire or Jathar Agni, is one of the biggest keys to unlocking our long term health, vitality & radiance. Before we get into how to restore the balance of your fire, I want to share a personal story with you. 

I want to share something with you that feels a little vulnerable, but more importantly I want to share the tools I was able to garner from the realm of Ayurveda that helped me through the process and out of it. 

I want to share with you the Ayurvedic wisdom that explains why practicing Vinyasa style in the evening causes all kinds of imbalance and what we should be doing instead. But first, I need to take you back in time. 

Circa 2012, I opened a tiny boutique yoga studio in the heart of the seedy, nightclub district of Perth’s inner city. The studio sat above a dungeon-like internet gaming place where I occasionally had to pop in to borrow their printer, and next door to a strip club where glamorous girls streamed through the back alley door and guys in fluorescent work shirts lined up on the sidewalk out front.  

Ayurveda is the science of vitality, a nature based system to support the Whole person as a complete package! Ayurveda is often described as the sister science to yoga, but in truth Ayurveda is more like an umbrella that covers our whole life. 

On my visits to India and in my early study of yoga and vedic philosophy I didn’t come across any information or guidance addressing life in a woman’s body. Not until I traveled down the path of studying ayurveda with a woman doctor, did the realm of women’s wellbeing and feminine spirituality open up.

Time is a circle, without beginning or end. It moves in cycles, one flowing seamlessly into the next. Many moments make a life and when we return to honouring every cycle and exactly what it has to offer, we Live a whole life. Embracing all forms, birth and death, all seasons, the light and dark.

Our entry point into the realm of Ayurveda are the three doshas, an extension and a refinement of the five natural elements. Ayurveda is the science of Living that umbrellas over our whole life - including our yoga practice, diet, sleep, sexuality and spirituality. Ayurveda is rooted in mother nature and teaches us how to become fluent in our primordial mother tongue, the language of nature. 

Here’s a quick recipe that is perfect for the spring season, also appropriate for all doshas!

The Perfect Storm

We are living in a time where we are constantly (literally 24/7) being bombarded by electricity and radiation from digital devices. This stimulation of the nervous system, coupled with our bullet-train-paced lifestyle, eating and working on the go is the Perfect Storm for creating a Vata imbalance. 

I’m not sure that I believe in work-life balance but I do believe in creating a schedule that feels like it’s supporting You, rather than stressing you. After all, it’s a tool that is supposed to help you to do your best work and be your best self.

Since my high school days, where I would rock up late to first period, waltz in with coffee in hand (my teachers must have seriously rolled their eyes at this!) I have had a love affair with coffee. Working as a barista in trendy cafes where drinking copious cups of coffee is the norm, fuelled my habitual coffee drinking and I didn’t give it a second thought.

There are a whole host of reasons why women in western cultures are struggling to conceive, and why 1 in 4 pregnancies now end in miscarriage, but I’d like to shift the focus off why and onto how we can give our bodies and babies the best pregnancy experience possible.

You might be familiar with the different phases of sleep that we (ideally) drop into on a nightly basis, where the body and mind undergo a process of healing and processing and there are a few things we want to do in the hours before we even hit the pillow to get ourselves in this ‘rest and digest’ state.

It was after a trip to the healing land of South India when I returned to Australia I decided to commit to a daily practice of Abhyanga self massage for 40 days. Each morning I would awaken before dawn and be with myself in this very intimate way.

Here is a foo proof morning routine from the Ayurveda world. But first of all, lets tweak our thinking, lets get out of routine and into ritual. Meaning, that we do each of these steps with self awareness and presence. It’s all about turning the mundane, human tasks into conscious moments.

Use your discernment and intuition to decide on what ingredients are balancing for you, go with produce that is organic, in season and as local as possible. This recipe  is balancing for all doshas but you can super charge it with the spices, veggies and grains that work best for you.