If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him....We need not wait to see what others do.
— MAHATMA GANDHI
Like riding a bike, living, too, is a balancing act. Generally, when we focus on one area of our life, another area is lacking. Maybe that part is an area of your life you’ve completely ignored for a long time. For some people it’s their body. For others it’s finances. Perhaps for you, it’s your spiritual life or your relationships. Whatever the case, there is always an area for improvement and an area where we feel inadequate or ill equipped to create progress. This is where patience comes in.
You’re creating a shift in your approach to life in general. Taking a holistic approach may seem overwhelming or even impossible at times. It is not an easy process. You’re rewiring your brain and your body. Learn to take baby steps: take one chapter or one spoke of the wheel at a time, practice it for a while, and master it before moving on. Changes do not happen overnight. Processing takes time too. It may be useful to read The Wheel of Healing with Ayurveda a second time before attempting to carry out any of the exercises.
On a positive note, changes do tend to have a ripple effect. For example, when you start to eat better or balance your mind-body type, you will begin to crave exercise or will sleep better. Or when you manage your emotions, you may feel compelled to learn meditation or improve your relationships.
Make a decision about what you would like to change first. What is most important at this time in your life? In other words, what must change?
When I teach meditation, I always tell my students in the first ten minutes of class that if they don’t practice, they won’t see results. And with consistent daily practice, they will see results faster. I also share with them the information that it takes about two hundred repetitions of a newly acquired skill before it becomes a habit. Anything you’re doing now that you want to change, you’ve been doing for a considerable amount of time, so you’ve had a lot of practice. If you’ve been eating cheeseburgers your whole life and neglecting green vegetables, you have a lot of practice eating cheeseburgers. If you’ve been a worrier, you don’t have a lot of practice managing your emotions. Be patient with yourself as you go through this process.
Dealing with Illness While Learning an Ayurvedic Lifestyle
Many people come to holistic health and healing because of an illness. In my own life, I remember saying to a boyfriend who was vegan and trying out a macrobiotic diet: “Hey, if I ever get cancer, I’ll try a macrobiotic diet.” Do you see that this logic was flawed from the get-go? My focus was not on preventive health; rather, I saw Ayurvedic health care as a tool to use once I got sick. That said, if you are dealing with a chronic or acute illness, or you are experiencing symptoms but don’t yet have a diagnosis, you can use Ayurvedic health care in conjunction with conventional medicine.
In fact, when I was diagnosed with cancer, I did a fair amount of research on the vegan diet and different modalities of complementary and alternative medicine. While I still went the traditional route (following allopathic recommendations), I was able to integrate a vegan diet, ate only organic foods, and drank distilled water and herbal teas.
Ayurvedic medicine does not suggest following a vegan diet; but a mostly vegetarian diet is helpful in any case. When you are ill, not only are you out of balance but also your body is depleted of the vital energy it needs to repair cells. The more you give it whole organic foods with antioxidants, phytochemicals, and vitamins, the easier it will be for your body to heal. The way I look at it is this: if you bought a Ferrari and the manufacturer suggested premium high-octane gasoline, and you gave it only regular unleaded, it might run, but poorly. The same goes for your body. If you give it some vegetables and a little fruit, and you get your calories mainly from other sources, your body will run, but not as well as it would if you gave it a lot of fresh vegetables and fresh fruit.
The great part of living an Ayurvedic lifestyle is that it’s gentle on the body. So even if you’re undergoing surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation, or you take prescription medications, you can also try all the methods outlined in this book, which treat the body kindly.
Addictions are simply disconnects from your true nature. They are a search for pleasure in a vast pool of pain. Addiction means turning to an object for your pleasure rather than turning to your higher self or spiritual self for bliss. We can be addicted to most anything, from alcohol or drugs to excessive Internet use.
Disengaging from a strong addiction to a substance generally requires professional care until the substance has been purged from the body and any withdrawal symptoms have subsided. If you have a problem with substances such as alcohol or recreational or prescription drugs, I suggest seeking medical and professional help before applying the principles in this book. Once you’re on the road to recovery, you can begin making use of The Wheel of Healing, which will in turn help you create wholeness in your body, mind, soul, and spirit so that cravings for the object of addiction are less likely to return.
If your addiction is not substance related, or it is an addiction to a lesser mind-altering substance, such as tobacco, then you can begin working on the aspects of the wheel. The more you connect to your spiritual self through the practice of meditation and expanded awareness, the less you will need the object you crave. One way you can begin to decrease usage of the object of addiction is through awareness and association. An addictive habit may be just that, a habit — a habit that has spiraled out of control and turned into an obsession. Habits tend to share similar patterns. We perform them under certain circumstances and with certain associations. For example, if you are a smoker, perhaps you’ve always had a cigarette with your morning coffee in the kitchen. The associative behaviors are drinking coffee and sitting in the kitchen. If you take away the associative behaviors, you are breaking a pattern. If you are a smoker with this particular association, I suggest that you have the morning cigarette in a place you would normally never associate with smoking, such as in the bathtub or in a room of the house you rarely go to. Then, you would consume the cigarette consciously. Focus only on smoking and sensations in the body, rather than on any distractions. In this way, you are creating new neuroassociations with smoking.
The same can go for overeating. People who overeat tend to have triggers. Perhaps one trigger is watching TV late at night. A person who munches in front of the TV late at night might instead take his snack to the table in the dining room, set out a nice place mat, and focus consciously on the same food. Again, it’s about breaking the pattern and creating a new pattern, but with total awareness of the behavior.
The more you heal the body and mind and connect with your spiritual self, the less your addictions can maintain a grip on you. Know that healing is possible, and that the essence of who you are is stronger than any addiction.
What If You Get Stuck on One Spoke and Cannot Move On?
Often when we pick up a self-help book, we come to it for a reason. Our physical health is poor or our emotions are a wreck. Maybe we’re in a life transition or looking for our life’s purpose. Whatever compelled you to pick up this book, you’re here. So you began reading or working on a section. And once you began, you found that self-improvement is not easy. Then you got stuck, mired deeply in the problem that prompted you to purchase the book in the first place. Frustrated, you now fear you cannot move on to the other sections.
Let me assure you, nothing could be farther from the truth. Have you ever, in your life, taken a standardized test? Or any timed test at all? What do all test strategists recommend? Work on the easy questions first, putting a small mark on the difficult ones; then, at the end, you can go back to the tricky ones. Success is a better motivator than frustration. We are ever evolving and ever changing. There is always room to grow, even in the areas where you believe you don’t need improvement. In fact, begin the work with your strongest aspect of health, tweak it, and then move on to your second strongest.
Staying stuck will get you nowhere. Life is not perfect. It’s naturally rather messy. Keep the wheel moving, and soon you will find you’re rolling smoothly. You’ll see new scenery, experience greater landscapes, and see the world before you in all its infinite possibilities.