All About Me #2
Date Posted:27 March 2013
Your #1 Priority
“Your body today is the result of your choices yesterday. Your body tomorrow will be the result of your choices today” 4000 year old Vedic saying.
Chances are life is busy, right? Doing less to accomplish more and keeping it simple becomes particularly important when life is busy or demanding. That means it’s helpful to know the one most important choice you can make to balance Vata, Pitta or Kapha within you.
So first let’s get started with a little knowledge and then review the one key choice for you below.
About the Doshas
- Ayurveda explains that underlying all of creation are 5 fundamental elements: Space, Air, Fire, Water and Earth.
- All of creation (including human beings) are combined of these 5 building blocks of creation. Yes this does includes your loved pets, trees, birds, foods etc.
- These 5 elements combine in different proportions to form 3 organising principles of nature called doshas – Vata Pitta and Kapha.
- Your unique combination of Vata, Pitta and Kapha (known as Prakriti) is often called your mind body type. This is determined at conception and as you grow in the womb.
- The proportion of Vata, Pitta and Kapa within you fluctuates according to your lifestyle choices (what you eat and drink, sleep, exercise, stress etc), your age or stage of life and the season. When these fluctuations fall outside a comfortable range then imbalance arises which is experienced as discomfort in your body, mind or behavior. This is called your body type of imbalance (known as Vikriti).
What is it that fluctuates?
You may well ask what is it that fluctuates causing imbalance? Understanding what fluctuates is very important for guiding your day to day choices.
It’s the qualities of Vata, Pitta and Kapha that fluctuate within you.
- Vata Qualities are dry, light, quick, cold, moving, subtle, thin, rough and penetrating – leads the other doshas.
- Pitta Qualities are hot, oily, sharp, acidic, fluid, and intense by nature.
- Kapha Qualities are heavy, solid, cold, unctuous, soft, sweet, steady, moist and slow by nature.
The guideline to be aware of when desiring balance is… a similar quality will increase a quality, and the opposite quality will decrease that quality.
For example: When it is hot outside the body’s internal heat increases and similarly when it is cold outside you become colder. I
f you eat a spicy meal then internal heat increases which may be helpful if you have a Kapha or Vata imbalance or nature and can benefit from warming up the cold quality within you. The cold quality is balanced by adopting an opposite quality of warmth. This choice could create imbalance (discomfort) if you have a Pitta imbalance or nature as you are naturally hot, and adding additional heat (similar quality) may cause discomfort or imbalance. Watch out when your blood gets overheated as it can cause a sharp and at times aggressive tongue that can burn loved ones and colleagues. If heat travels downwards it gives rise to loose or soft bowel and frequent urination. If excess heat travels around the body it can give rise to high blood pressure and skin conditions.
In this way each of the qualities of Vata, Pitta and Kapha can become aggravated or increased beyond a comfortable point for you, giving rise to signs of imbalance. Taking our Test Your Health questionnaire identifies the key dosha or area of imbalance you need to focus on to help restore balance.
My #1 Priority
Based on your Test Your Health results adopt one of the following choices for the next 3 weeks and do an experiment to see how things change. You may be surprised… Select from the links below:
Wishing you the bliss of perfect balance.
The Get Balance Team