many years of eating very little sugar, I started to add it back into my diet and I don’t mean through eating lollies and cakes (though I did tell the sheriff in me they are allowed sometimes), I mean through adding more ripe seasonal fruit into my diet, sweet vegetables and grains, sweet spices to my porridges and on birthdays I’d bake a cake.
To remedy my intensity and hyper vigilance and to cool my mind, I introduced a little bit of dairy, but I was really mindful of how I did this. Not all dairy is suitable for Pitta types and of course the dairy I loved didn’t love me. I needed to ease up on the parmesan and salty feta and eat more soft fresh cheeses.
I began adding ghee to everything and slowly things started to change. I started to change and finally after many years I felt myself relaxing and softening and feeling open to sitting still. Prior to looking into Ayurveda, just the thought of sitting still made me anxious; every time I sat down and stopped my mind revved up. I’d spent my whole life trying to out run, out work, out educate the voices that lived in there that told me I needed to be more, achieve more, know more blah, blah, blah ...
It wasn’t until I was courageous enough to look at my work addiction and my Pitta attachment to success and being seen that the big stuff started to shift for me. You see, Ayurveda is here to help us create balance in all areas of our life and I needed to start looking at the elements in my life that had been missing.
My biggest challenge was learning how to do nothing; it still is. It is hard for me to avoid filling up my days. All of this is still a work in progress and I try not to take it too seriously, as my natural tendency is to be very serious and to want to try to be the best at everything I touch. Ayurveda has taught me so much about myself and a lot of it has been hard to see. Ayurveda has also taught me a lot about people around me and at first I would use it as a tool to diagnose and psychoanalyse everyone. I suggest you don’t do that! When I first discovered it, though, I have to admit I was pretty obsessed with trying to figure out what doshas my friends and family were and offering loads of unsolicited advice about things they could change to make their lives better – oh so Pitta! These days I try to mind my own business and only offer suggestions when asked. I must be maturing!
As I head towards the Pitta Vata stage of my life (as different times of life are also governed by the three main doshas, more about this shortly) they say I am meant to become more sensitive, creative, wiser, spiritual, forgetful, stiffer and drier. I can feel myself letting go of the need to be seen in the world that I held onto so tightly in my 20s, 30s and 40s when my fire was burning bright. And even though I am in some way grieving the fire diminishing in me, I do on a deeper level feel it is time to step aside and let those younger high-energy entrepreneurs have their time in the sun. I am also called to honour the cycles and rhythms of nature and remember that I am just another small part of it.
Today I have given up my mad exercise regime, thank goodness. I know now that too much exercise will aggravate the Vata that is now rising in me, so instead of running, boot camping and vinyasa-ing, I take long walks with my beloved dog, teach a much more balanced style of yoga, practise yin yoga and surf. I manage the heat in my body with cooling foods, healthy lifestyle choices, calm people, relaxing environments and spending time in nature.
I want you to know, I am not a saint and I don’t follow the Ayurvedic eating plan with rigidity. I do still eat foods that are listed in the foods to avoid column for Pittas and accept the consequences. (See Food Charts For Vata, Pitta, Kapha at the back of the book, pages 240–5.) I cherish winter where my Pitta is at its calmest. I have learnt to love relaxing and best of all I have learnt to listen. I know humbly and wholeheartedly now that I am not always right, but I still really love when I am. I can now accept the differences in others and not see them as weaknesses. I understand that when I am angry or overheated it is about me and not about others and what they have done to me. I see I have an amazing ability to transform things and create something from nothing, and that is the gift of my Pitta, but most of all I know that the things I love often are not the best things for me.
Ayurveda has taught me to respect that we are all individuals and what works for one won’t necessarily work for another. We are all on a journey of self-discovery; some will move a little faster than others but it is essential we honour the other person’s path. Life is here to teach us the lessons we need to learn. We must all remember to listen to the voice inside of us as it knows the truth about how we feel. Following how I feel inside has never been easy but it’s the best compass I have found.
Enjoy the ride.
Yoga is the journey of the self through the self to the self.
–The Bhagavad Gita
Using this book
Ayurveda is a gentle way of living. It is not my intention to be preaching to you here. Take what resonates with you and leave what doesn’t. As with any changes to your diet, you may want to consult your GP or health practitioner before you begin. I don’t demand that what is written on these pages be followed with such vigour you drive everyone around you nuts. Life is big, it is organic and it ebbs and flows. We are not in control: we have a say and we can try our best but we need to remember that life is not an exam, we are here to enjoy it and feel good in it.
I know that there will be times when it is easy to move through your day with ease, prepare your meals, eat the recommended foods, say all the right things, go for a walk, drink a herbal tea and finish your day feeling just super. And then there will be other days when it’s a total nightmare, you will wake up feeling crap, you will eat something indulgent for brekkie and it will just continue to get more pear shaped from there. And that’s OK. Enjoy every mouthful, I say.
I want you to go slowly with this, go gently and remain flexible. I am introducing you to Ayurveda to improve your life, not add another stress. It’s all about balance and moderation, so cliché but so true when it comes to wellness.
To get started, first you need to figure out which doshas form your constitution, and then take a look if you are in balance or out of balance, which is perhaps what brought you to this book. All of that’s in the next section. You will learn about the various characteristics of each dosha, then how to balance your constitution, followed by a little about the Ayurvedic approach to health, including the perfect daily routine and which foods to embrace and which to avoid if you are feeling out of whack. Of course, the bulk of this book is recipes, so once you know which dosha you are predominantly and that it is in balance, you could simply skip to that section and eat from there, confident that you are doing yourself some good.
There are Vata recipes that feature warming foods for autumn and early winter or for Vata types who need to reduce cooling foods, followed by Pitta recipes to cool you down in summer, and finally Kapha recipes for late winter and spring that contain astringent foods to help dry up the season’s colds. These recipes will help you harmonise your doshas and help you gain a feeling of balance.
For those of you who need to know more, the endmatter (pages 228–245) provides even more information in the form of pantry information, food charts and other useful references.
Okay, hope that’s all clear. Let’s get into it!
Which dosha are you?
READING YOUR CHART AND DISCOVERING YOUR DOSHA
On the following pages are two charts that will help you figure out the particular mix of doshas that comprise your constitution. You may discover that you have some of the characteristics of all three doshas; this is not uncommon. But you will probably have one dominant dosha (Vata, Pitta or Kapha), then another dosha that is slightly less obvious, and so you would be, say, Vata Pitta, Pitta Kapha or Vata Kapha.
For