Get to know Linda, our resident Maharishi Ayurveda consultant

Get to know Linda Sinden, our lovely resident Maharishi Ayurveda Consultant.  This is part 1 of our recent interview with her.

1. How long have you been practicing Maharishi Ayurveda?
   
   Linda: I had my first personal consultation in Netherlands one cold winters day  when the snow piled up outside and I was enjoying a white Christmas. This was when I began practicing Maharishi Ayurveda in my own life about 36 years ago. I was attending a meditation course over the New Year break and had a consultation with an Indian lady Vaidya . She could tell so much from my pulse and I was devastated to learn that the ‘healthy’ food I had been carefully cooking on a Sunday and freezing for the coming week was old food. I got that cooking and freezing food made it old and impure food. My symptoms of mucous congestion, bloating, weight gain and a tendency for low thyroid were being aggravated by taking old and impure food, food that was older than 4 hours. To my dismay food that was reheated fell into the category of impure food.  I realised I didn’t know what I needed to know to address my lingering and persistent symptoms. So my personal journey began.
   
   It was at this event as I was calling home on Christmas Eve that I realised I wanted to help people the way I had been helped. I was fascinated. I didn’t know how I  would achieve this goal. Merely, I knew that it was a calling for me.
   
   It took until 1989 for the first training course for Maharishi Ayurveda Consultants to be available. To my surprise and delight it was held in Wellington NZ and drew 30+ participants from 35 countries.
   
    

2. How many personal consultations have you given?
   
   Linda: I stopped counting the number of consultations I had given when it reached 11,000 a number of years ago.
   
    

3. Why do you require new clients to have a 1 hour consultation?
   
   Linda: Experience has shown me there are two parts to a successful consultation:
   
   First, accurately understanding the needs of the client via pulse analysis if they are sitting with me in person, or diagnosis through observation if they are on Skype, FaceTime, Messenger or Whatsapp. This is backed up by a detailed questionnaire and via discussion during the consultation.

   Secondly, preparing the client for the medicine they are about to receive. A medicine, from an Ayurvedic Perspective includes the removal of Pragyaparadha (mistaken notions of the intellect) which causes ones behaviour to be out of step with nature’s rhythms. In addition, understanding the person’s current lifestyle needs and constraining pressures is essential for working with the person to establish an implementation plan.

   The  implementation plan also helps to identify a personal goal that ‘lights’ the person up. This goal is achieved by following the implementation plan we design together. It is a team effort!
   
    

4. What is generally covered in a 60 minute follow-up consultation? Half hour follow-up consultation?
   
   Linda: A 60 minute consultation allows time for a follow up pulse analysis or assessment via observation and conversation. The client updates me on how they are now, what they have been doing, what is working for them and how they are going with the goal established in the first consultation which "lights them up". Then we look at what is needed now and revise the implementation plan. It’s all about empowering the person to take timely action and to be a personal source of inspiration for themselves.
    

   Half an hour consultation touches on the points above in a shortened way.