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Ayurveda: The Science of Life

The 5,000 year old sister-science of yoga, Ayurveda (from Sanskrit words ayur, meaning “life” and veda, meaning “knowledge” or “wisdom”) helps us to harmonize our minds, bodies, and lifestyles with our spiritual purpose. It teaches that we are a microcosm, a universe within ourselves. That we are the children of cosmic forces and the external environment, the macrocosm.

According to the Cancer Research Institute, 38.4% of men and women will be diagnosed with some form of cancer in their lifetimes.

Have you noticed how chronically sick we are today? I don’t know anyone that doesn’t struggle with anxiety, depression, fatigue, ADD, digestive issues, skin imbalances, joint pain, or autoimmunity. I believe this is partly because Western Medicine generalizes and categorizes individuality- looking only at symptoms. Ayurveda holds that normality must be evaluated individually, because every human constitution manifests its own particular spontaneous temperament and functioning.

Shirodara, a deeply healing ayurvedic treatment in Pancha Karma.

In Ayurveda there are 3 main body types, or doshas that determine your individual makeup. Recognizing that human begins are parts of nature, Ayurveda describes three fundamental energies that govern our inner and outer environments: movement, transformation, and structure. Known in Sanskrit as Vata (wind), Pitta (fire), and Kapha (Earth), these primary forces are responsible for the characteristics of our mind and body and are what we use to classify your dosha (body type). Your dosha can be accurately determined by a pulse diagnoses from an Ayurvedic practitioner and is very helpful to know so that you have a roadmap for disease prevention and balancing. Because we all have one dominant dosha, it’s no wonder why different people react to environmental circumstances differently. Some people tolerate high heat very well, others like me with a lot of Pitta (fire) in us become very cranky in high temperatures. Once you know what your dosha is, you can learn how to bring yourself into balance with your diet, lifestyle and mental/spiritual habits, no matter what your environment might be like.

The human body consists of seven basic and vital tissues called dhatus. The Sanskrit word dhatu means “constructing element”. These seven are responsible for the functions of the different organs, systems and vital parts of the body, as well as part of the biological protective mechanism- your immune system. The seven dhatus are the plasma, blood, muscle, fat, bone, marrow/nerves, and reproductive tissues. When one dhatu is defective, it affects the others, as each dhatu receives nourishment from the previous. You can imagine how toxic most of our dhatus are in the 21st century with chemical-filled food and products, medications, electronics, environmental toxins and GMOs.

This is why cleansing is a huge part of Ayurveda. Keep in mind, this modality came about 5,000 years ago, and even then doctors were recommending quarterly detox and reflection.

The most efficient way to detox all of your dhatus, as well as your mind and spirit, is through the healing program called Pancha Karma.

This process involves 5-30 consecutive days of massage treatments, detox herbs, nutrient-dense food, and spiritual/mindfulness practices. There are centers in India dedicated to Pancha Karma where you can go and completely unplug as you detox, as well as some retreat centers in the States.

If the root of all disease lies in one of these dhatus then it is imperative for disease prevention to keep all 7 in balance.

I do a quarterly 21 day cleanse to detox my organs and mind and not only have blood work to show the amazing results from this, but my overall energy and mood are far better than when I was full of inflammation due to poor diet and unhealthy thoughts. This motivates me to be proactive with my health- I do a 5 day Pancha Karma twice a year, along with a quarterly liver detox. Just ask my close friends and family how much more fun I am to be around than a few years ago.

When I coach clients I pull from the wisdom of Ayurveda AND modern medicine (specifically Functional Medicine) to create individualized plans that help you treat the ROOT of your imbalance and not just manage symptoms with medication like Western Medicine does, which only creates more inflammation. Because of this, you will experience long-term healing and vitality.

If you want to bring Ayurveda into your life to prevent disease or balance a current issue, the best place to start is with Pancha Karma. You’ll discover your dosha through pulse diagnoses, receive meal plans, detox supplements and 1:1 guidance for your individual needs, as well as have 5 consecutive days of healing massage to balance each of the 7 dhatus.

Estimated national expenditures for cancer care in the United States in 2017 were $147.3 billion.

You are the microcosm of the macrocosm- what’s the current state of your personal universe? If it isn’t balanced it’s only a matter of time before your symptoms get worse and turn into chronic disease (if they haven’t already). Investing in your health now can save you time, energy and money spent on treating a deeper imbalance in the future.

If you want to save a trip to India and want to experience Pancha Karma here in Washington, I offer in-home 5 day programs, or you can visit my office in Kirkland. I would be honored to support you on your journey to deeper self-awareness and vitality.

Learn more about Pancha Karma

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Lean into Discomfort

Lean into suffering. I know this sounds counterintuitive but hear me out. We will live an average of 78.69 years on earth and most of us will spend those years in a futile attempt to numb and distract from pain and suffering. We’ll go on stimulating vacations, pay for doctors and prescriptions, drink/smoke/vape/Juul/whatever new addictive trend is in, eat food and consume media that triggers as many dopamine/pleasure responses as possible—and all the while our deepest fears and pains still reside in our bodies and subconscious minds, ready to knock you off your center at any moment. 

Avoidance is a recipe for bigger pain and louder suffering. 

In the span of a few years I went from having mild anxiety to having chronic nausea, gut issues and depression, regular anxiety attacks and insomnia, and was quickly losing my will to live. It wasn’t until I faced my fear and suffering head on that I was able to get to the root of the unhealthy pattens and beliefs that were controlling my life. 

Looking at my fear face to face was what eventually gave me emotional (and physical) freedom.

This is why I meditate. It isn’t easy. In fact it really sucks sometimes to sit for 30 minutes observing the noise in my head when all I want to do is sleep in a bit longer. But what this practice allows me to do is to understand the insanity of my human mind so that the ridiculous voices of my ego don’t control me anymore. The judgmental, self-doubty, scared little kid that lives inside all of us and does everything to feel powerful and in control. The one that really drives the car. 

She felt disempowered many times as a little one. She didn’t have much of a choice about how to perceive the world as a kid. But that little one will not drive my adult life anymore. I have a choice in that. 

That is why I continue to do my own hypnotherapy sessions with my therapist so that I can regress to impactful memories that solidified these unhealthy beliefs into my psyche- The traumatic but also sometimes first world situations that programmed my subconscious wiring. 

Mom forgot to pick me up from school when I was 5 so sitting on the steps of primary school that little one decided that she wasn’t important. She decided to act small – now that a new neural pathway was formed with that belief she will continue to look for situations that confirm her lack of importance. Rather than see 5 of her close friends invite her to their birthday parties, she focuses on the fact that her best friend didn’t invite her to her party. See? I know I’m not important. 

What happens in hypnotherapy is that I can scoop that little one up and remind her that she is important and loved. I can create a new belief with an adult mind that empowers me and helps to bring awareness to the numbing behaviors I partake in to avoid these negative self-perceptions. I have the power to create new, more productive neural pathways in my subconscious. I can literally rewire my mind. 

That is real power. And it doesn’t come from avoiding fear and suffering. It comes from walking up to it and placing a graceful hand to its face and saying, “I see you. I hear you. I love you.” 

Hypnotherapy is a tool that can guide you to those places in your subconscious mind  that have control over your life. It provides a flashlight into your very programming. What do you think, is your mind ready for a software update? 

If so, come see me for some hypnotherapy in Kirkland. A couple of 75 minute sessions just might offer you more insight than you’ll get from years of talk therapy.

Schedule Hypnotherapy Appointment

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Honoring Your Inner Knowing

Underneath this smile used to be more fear than I could name. The weight of it was like a prison from which I couldn’t escape.

I made every effort to numb and suppress it with inflammatory “comfort” food and drink, social media and my phone, Netflix/Hulu/HBO NOW/Starz (I’m no amateur streamer), and pot. I was in a constant state of survival, grasping for anything that would make the fear go away, even if only temporarily.

Waking up each day was a battle. I would wake with panic and nausea, and then the wave of judgement and shame would immobilize me even more. How could I feel this way when I had so much to be grateful for? I had a family and husband who loved me, a job I was passionate about, a beautiful home – how could I be so entitled?

Eventually this bombardment of emotion was too much for my body to take. It got to the point where I didn’t want to wake up anymore. I would pray that I wouldn’t – if it would just free me from the constant pain and anxiety that controlled my body, mind and spirit.

Once I reached rock bottom I realized that I had nothing to lose. I was at a choice point: life or fear. So I summoned what little strength I had left to connect to Universal Consciousness/God/Spirit/Divine/whatever you want to call it- I was ready to do anything that would free me from the constant struggle. Even though I hated it in the past, I felt guided to start meditating and spend more time in nature.

Once I opened up the space for my Higher Self to guide me I couldn’t ignore the messages about what needed to happen for me to come back to life. And ultimately it meant ending a marriage with my best friend. I was ignoring this truth for too long because it was too painful to face, so my body got louder- the nausea and anxiety got worse.

I don’t regret that relationship, nor do I harbor any ill feelings towards my ex. Neither of us did anything wrong, but our paths had to go different ways for our highest good. And that was a terrifying truth to face, but one that ultimately changed my life for the better.

Hiking the Isle of Skye, Scotland this past summer. One of the many magical experiences I had after releasing pent up fear.

This experience taught me how to listen to my body; a skill that many of us lack, especially in such a distracting society. I now know how to discern what is in my best interest and what is not, whether that be relationships, food, experiences, or thoughts. As I continue to practice this skill I realize how lost most of us really are because we don’t know how to listen to our inner knowing. Each of us has a higher self (that gut instinct you get? Yeah, that’s her) that is doing everything in her power to lead you toward your highest good and life purpose. The more we ignore her, the louder she gets. Trust me, don’t try to shut her up because she can out-scream you any day of the week.

Are you suppressing emotions because they’re uncomfortable to deal with? If you aren’t then you likely don’t have a pulse…

90% of our mind is subconscious. So every time you have a stressful situation or emotion and choose to numb out with The Bachelor (Game of Thrones is my poison of choice) or that Pumpkin Spice Latte and chocolate muffin- all you’re really doing is shoving it down into your subconscious. That shame or fear is having a party with all the other misfit emotions you weren’t equipped to deal with and have suppressed, and eventually that casual party is going to turn into a rager and the cops are going to come and your neighbors are going to freak out and… you get the point. Shit is going to hit the fan eventually. Your suppressed emotions are a ticking time bomb, patiently waiting to turn into chronic anxiety or acne or cancer or autoimmunity or *fill in the blank with any disease or symptom you’re not getting to the root of*, if they haven’t already.

Playing in a river near Glen Coe, Scotland last July – chronic anxiety free!

But here’s what’s exciting! There are tools to heal these traumas and suppressed emotions. You don’t have to keep living like this. Hypnotherapy was one of the most powerful tools for releasing years and years of suppressed emotions that were causing IBS, acne, depression, anxiety and ADD. I also had to detox and change my diet to fully heal, but getting to the emotional root was the biggest piece of the puzzle.

When I see pictures of myself now I can’t believe how light and bright I feel compared to a year ago. And love, you can have that, too. You just need to invest in yourself and your healing. Every moment of every day you have a choice. Life or fear?

In vibrant health,

Kendyl

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Forgiveness: Medicine for the Soul

I’ll never forget the first time I heard of the ancient Hawaiian prayer, Ho’oponopono. They call it a ‘rinse’ because of the medicinal washing effect it has for the soul. Ho’oponopono means, “I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you.” I couldn’t stop reading it when I first saw it, and found that I was doing exactly what it was intended for- rinsing and repeating. At the time when I first came upon this practice I was the lowest of lows in my physical and mental health. I had severe IBS, chronic nausea and fatigue from SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth), cystic acne, was 30 pounds overweight, and had depression and anxiety as a result of all of this. Reading the words, “I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you,” really hit me. It made me realize how hard I had been on my body for ‘failing’ me. Why couldn’t I digest my food properly like everyone else seemed to? I didn’t eat gluten, sugar, caffeine, or dairy for months and months, took loads of supplements, did dozens of colonics, and only noticed mild relief from the chronic symptoms that were tearing me down each day. “Why is this happening to ME?,” I kept thinking. I was completely stuck in a victim mentality, until I read ho’oponopono. I immediately put my hands on my belly and heart and was brought to tears at the effect I felt from repeating this only a few times to my body. It was as if the force that had been weighing me down and keeping me in a dark fog was beginning to lift.

The medicine I gained from the brief exposure to this forgiveness practice changed my life. I began doing this each time I would have a victim thought about how I was feeling or what was happening to me, and attune my awareness instead to all of the things my body was doing for me and how lucky I was in my life. This body has taken me up mountains to see amazing sights, my eyes have allowed me to witness all of the beauty and magic around me, my tongue has allowed me to taste the sweetness of the earth, my voice has allowed me to communicate and sing, I have an amazing family and freedoms many people will never feel. The list goes on. A quick shift in perspective can change everything. The momentum gained from this practice encouraged me to begin daily mediation. Once my emotional and spiritual body felt stronger I noticed my physical body follow suit pretty quickly. But not entirely.

I married an amazing man with 2 young boys (one of them is autistic) when I was 22. I knew this was a lot to take on at my young age but I felt like I could handle it because I loved him and his kids so deeply. I was so accustomed to feeling anxious and a lack of physical/mental vitality since adolescence that I didn’t think the marriage had anything to do with it, until I started my daily meditation and forgiveness work. I noticed drastic changes in my health from these practices, but I knew I still had a long way to go because of the anxiety and chronic bloating I still had. I’d done therapy, hypnotherapy, immersion retreats and other healing practices to get underneath the roots of my emotional and physical imbalances, and made lots of progress with certain symptoms, yet I still had chronic anxiety and gut issues.

I had been studying chronic disease in children because we were starting to prepare for pregnancy and I wanted us in peak physical health before conceiving, so as to avoid passing down our inflammation to our child. So I had to keep digging. Underneath every symptom is a true root cause that is often overlooked or hidden with medication. And unfortunately, the root cause of these imbalances ended up being the marriage and stresses that came with it. Being a step-mother is a tough job for anyone, but at my age is was eventually too much for my body to take on. Obviously I had thought about this before marrying him, but when you love someone that deeply, you’ll do anything to be together. I had worked with clients in their 40s, 50s, and 60s who had autoimmunity and other chronic illness, and nearly each one of them I spoke to had an unhealthy or unfulfilling marriage. I could see the path I was headed down if I didn’t address my symptoms. Do I get pregnant, raise a kid together for a while, and let the anxiety turn into something more severe, only to end the marriage later? Or make the hardest decision of my life and end it before going in deeper? Luckily, and very sadly I chose the latter, and the effect on my health that this had has been profound. I’ve never had so much energy, my anxiety is mild when it comes up, my gut is happy, and my heart feels completely open and light. This took a while to get to because I had a lot of grieving to do, but I’m so glad that I had the courage to take the leap of faith for the sake of my health, and for the sake of my ex and his boys. If I had stayed in the marriage with the knowledge that the relationship and responsibility of being a step-mother was affecting my health it would have built up resentment and I would be living out of integrity. It would have hurt everyone far more in the long run. Being in integrity with yourself and those you love is the only healthy choice, even if the process is painful for you and those around you.

Fast forward 8 months- I’ve been in Scotland for almost a month, pursuing my dreams of entrepreneurship and volunteering on sustainable organic farms to learn as much as I can. I spent a couple of weeks of this time with my mom and step-father, touring around the highlands and isles, visiting ancient sacred stone circles, burial grounds, and Pictish stones. It has been a completely healing and heart-opening experience that I feel incredibly grateful for.

This photo was taken at the Fairy Glen in Rosemarkie on the Black Isle. Scotland is a magical and mystical land. The magic is evident in the rock faces and sacred pools. It’s almost as if I was in a trance when I came upon this pool. I was drawn to the face in the rocks on the right of the waterfall and stepped into the pools to get closer.

Before I left home in June I received a ton of emotionally abusive hate mail out of the blue from a mother of a former peer. There was no reason for it and it really shocked me. It completely threw me off my center and I felt like a scared little kid, about to embark on a solo trip to the UK with an overwhelming amount of fear and uncertainty. But eventually I saw this woman as a wonderful teacher for me. Anytime someone triggers you they are providing a mirror for some behavior in yourself that you don’t like. Now, obviously I don’t harass people online, but I have acted out because of my emotions and was able to use this experience for some spiritual growth in recognizing this part of myself. It was actually perfect timing because it created a challenge that the universe knew I could handle on my own, without my family and friends around me- independence has been my growth edge and the reason why I decided to do this trip alone. Once I received the medicine and teaching from this experience I had to start the forgiveness process, which I’ll admit was very difficult at first because the hate mail kept coming in for days, not only to me but my mother and ex-husband as well. But the pools at the Fairy Glen provided a sacred setting for me to do some really deep forgiving. Because staying angry or bitter about this wouldn’t change anything, it would only be poison for my soul, and eventually my body. So in the pools I brought every person who I had bitterness or resentment towards into my mind’s eye and repeated Ho’oponopono until I felt a lightness in my heart and could send them on their way. I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you. Once I had done the forgiving of others, I turned it around and sent it to myself. Being a child of divorce, I knew how much pain I had caused my step-sons and ex-husband. I held so much shame in my heart and body about what I had done and couldn’t seem to let it go, even though I knew it was the right decision to leave. But as I stood in this pool, with the guardian of the glen looking down on me, repeating ho’oponopono and physically rinsing my body with the sacred waters, I started to feel a completion of this grieving process. A true release of all of the pain and shame I was holding inside towards myself. I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you.

Forgiveness is medicine for the soul. When the soul receives medicine, the mental and physical body also receive that medicine. What may be manifesting as a physical or emotional symptom like arthritis, IBS, acne,  autoimmunity, anxiety, depression or insomnia has a much deeper root. Give yourself the freedom of forgiveness. It isn’t always easy, but just repeating those words: “I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you” will literally create a new neural pathway in your brain so that eventually you’ll believe it. Replace a resentful or angry thought with ho’oponopono and your body and sprit will feel lighter.

Remember, darkness and light can’t occupy the same space, nor can anger and love. I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. This life is yours to make what you will with it. You can’t control what’s happened to you, only how you choose to respond to and assimilate it. Forgiveness may just be the medicine you need.

In vibrant health,

Kendyl