Falling into alignment -Seasonal shifts for vibrant health
It feels good when things are aligned.
And being in alignment - body, mind and spirit - comes when you cultivate a deep awareness of your intuition and noticing the world around you, to acknowledge that everything has a season...
Ayurveda is especially powerful in its teachings around how to honor the seasonal shifts and help maintain vibrant balance by aligning with nature’s rhythms. I’m so glad to have discovered and started applying many of these ancient-healing traditions of into my own life as well as using the teachings as a powerful tool help my clients find and maintain balance. I especially love that Ayurveda is a holistic system for living well. It’s all about learning to connect with and honor your intuitive voice and peeling away the pretense, ‘shoulds’ and other clutter and confusion to lean-in on what will truly NOURISH and best care for yourself moment by moment.
The truth is - everything around you in your world AND, everything inside of you are made up of the same essential elements. It makes perfect sense then, that the more fully you can align with nature’s rhythms and the changing seasons, the better you will look, the more alive and healthy you will feel. It’s that simple.
Ayurveda so beautifully teaches that there are times for activity, output, and effort...and times of rest and retraction. Times to pause and regenerate. There are natural rhythms and cycles of birth and death. The tides roll in and out again...and the activity of the day turns to the still of the night.
In this fall season, as we transition from the activity, heat and energy of sultry summer, we can choose to be more conscious of the world around us and make small shifts in our self care, diet and routines that allow us to fall more intimately in step with fall season - honoring any urges to rest, nest, go more inward and slow down.
The shift to more windy, cooler fall season brings about its own set of dynamic conditions and it’s especially important to keep excess Vata energy in check. Vata is associated with the element of wind and has the qualities of being light, irregular and dry. And, since fall season brings these same energetic qualities, it’s easier to become unbalanced.
A few clues to spotting Vata imbalance, or excess of Vata energies include: dry skin, dry brittle hair or nails, constipation or bloating, a scattered mind, anxiety, worry or fear, and coldness throughout the body.
From these clues it’s easy to see how the changing of the seasons from summer to the windy, erratic, cooler fall can heap on more Vata energy and cause an imbalance for many of us. Below are a few of my favorite easy things you can do right now to help ease into fall and keep Vata in check:
Create and stick to a routine. The irregular, unpredictable energies of Vata this time of year become more balanced with this structure. Consider: journaling, meditation, a quiet easy walk or yoga class. A glass of warm ginger tea with lemon or pure filtered water before you consume anything else in the morning is great too.
Put more focus on warm, cooked meals - always finished with some healthy fats. Root vegetables like beets and yams as well as soups and stews are great. I also recommend avoiding entire meals of raw foods, frozen foods and dehydrated foods like popcorn.
Morning self-massage/abhyanga - use a tablespoon of warm sesame seed oil and start at your scalp massaging in the oil on down your body. Use long, loving back and forth motions along the limbs and round circular motions on the joints like elbows and knees. This single practice stimulates circulation, awakens the body, helps to release toxins and deeply nourishes the skin.
Wishing you an amazing fall in vibrant balance!
Work + live gorgeously well
xo - Jennifer
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