Yoga and meditation are different things to different people. They can be tools to focus the mind and body. They can be a spiritual expression and a way to ground yourself. Yoga can just be a physical exertion that moves the body and stretches the muscles.
However, if you look at the functionality of yoga and meditation, you could look at it as tools for bringing your physical, mental and emotional systems into a state of balance. They work to buff off the sharp edges of both the highs and lows of a modern life. Picture an old fashioned wind up toy. Cranked too much, and the toy ricochets about, smashing into everything in its path. If you don’t wind it enough, it will teeter about awkwardly and will not bring any joy at all. A yoga and meditation practice serves as that regulation function, so that when you end your practice, you’ve intentionally created a state of greater balance. You’ve wound your toy just right amount, so to speak.
Consider this – You are not fully in control of how much you get wound up, or how much you get ground down. The world around you turns your crank. An SUV cuts you off on your way to work. And you’re all wound up. Your Amazon delivery gets lots. And you’re all wound down. Your phone battery dies and you don’t have a charger. And you’re all wound up again. Even having the best day you can possibly dream of can throw things off balance, so that when you come to your mat to practice, to bring everything back to its natural balance point, you have to compete with all those forces to get there. You have to work extra hard to restore balance because of all of these environmental factors turning your crank.
Now, what if there were simple things you could do to shift how you normally live your life that lessen the impact of all that environment
al crank turning? What if your lifestyle was intentionally designed so that balance was possible in all moments, not just when you head into your yoga and meditation practice? What if getting to that point of balance on the mat was significantly easier because you were never far from balance in the first place?
That’s the function that Ayurveda can have in your life. With yoga and meditation, we intentionally create our experience during our practice. Ayurveda allows us to continue that intentional creation in all the other areas of our life.
Ayurveda is not about “eat this, don’t eat that”. It’s a suite of tools, a system, that you can fully customize to have exact level of balance, energy and wellness that you want to have in your life. Creating an Ayurvedic lifestyle will deepen your spiritual practice as you won’t have to work so hard to come back to your natural balance point.
Learning about Ayurveda involves a bit of trial and error. You’ll read about something, you’ll test it out in your life and maybe it doesn’t have the effect the website tells you it’s going to. Or maybe it works too well and you’re bouncing off the walls with extra energy. You might throw your hands up and walk away, thinking it’s not for you. But what if you had a partner in that experience, someone who could help you tweak what you’re doing to get the exact effect you want?
Embodying Ayurveda is the answer.
Elizabeth Cunningham Bossart is bringing her Embodying Ayurveda course to Yoga Well Institute. This 8-month course is more of an experience then it is about book learning and knowledge building. We want you to “live” Ayurveda, embody it, if you will, rather than “learn” about it. To do that, you’ll have a master-level expert to walk side-by-side with you to intentionally design your own experience. You’re unique, and the tools you employ in your own life must be as unique as you are to be effective.
You’ll meet once a week with Elizabeth over an 8-month period. This will give you all the time you need to build new habits, to try on new experiences and figure out for yourself what works best for you. The weekly classes will be recorded for your convenience, and we will host a private community so you can get all the attention you need.
Right now really is the perfect time to start this. Seasonal changes bring predictable disruptions in how we eat and what happens around us. I’m not just talking about the shorter days and less sunlight. The fresh food that is available also changes. And there’s just something about November and December with the holidays and family obligations and the work year ending that provides all this environmental stress that makes any sense of balance seem impossible.
Ayurveda is the perfect tool allowing you to finally be in control of who’s turning your crank.
Embodying Ayurveda will kick off December 6th. The course is $1197 paid in full, or 8-monthly payments of $167. You can register here. If you have any questions about this or need any further information, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
