How to practice self love with Ayurveda ?! 💘

If you pay any attention to the New Age,  health and wellness industry, chances are you’ve come across the concept of “self-love.”  “Self-love,” which is a central aspect of almost all natural healing modalities, has entered into the mainstream vocabulary, and more than likely you can walk into any yoga studio and see people wearing shirts with phrases like “Love Yourself” and “You Are Love.” However, as ideal as the concept of self-love sounds, actually practicing self-love and making it a part of who we are can be very difficult.

Luckily, Ayurveda provides us with ancient, time-tested techniques for taking care of our minds, bodies, and spirits, living healthy lives, and loving ourselves. But before we get to that, let’s understand exactly what self-love is, and why it is lacking in modern society.

What is self-love?

At its core, self-love is an unconditional acceptance of who we are. This means accepting all parts of ourselves, both the parts that we see as positive, and those qualities, such as jealousy, anger, and the size of our thighs, that we would rather change. Self-love takes physical shape when we practice self-care, which can be any action that makes us feel good and demonstrates care for ourselves.

While self-care is often advertised as expensive luxuries, such as massage, spa days, and health foods, in reality, self-care is any action that leads to increased feelings of wellness. Self-care can be as simple as going to bed earlier or going for a walk when you feel stressed.

The Challenge of Self-Love

When put into writing, self-love sounds like a pretty obvious thing, right? Basically, self-love means taking care of yourself and loving yourself regardless of what you do or how you look. Unfortunately, we live in a culture that often causes us to feel not good enough in relation to societal standards of success and physical appearance.

Because we live in a capitalist society, which is based on competition and accumulating more, it is very easy to fall into the thought trap of believing that we are not doing enough, that we do not have enough, and that we are not good enough. The capitalist culture tells us that when we have the new phone, new car, bigger house, or designer clothes, we will be good enough. However, competition is an illusion, as more often than not we already have more than enough resources to survive and thrive.

The media is one of the biggest perpetrators of self-hatred, as TV shows, movies, magazines, and social media all send out images of idealized bodies, relationships, and personalities. The media perpetuates a cookie-cutter standard of unattainable beauty and life, which for women tends to center around being skinny, having flawless skin and hair, wearing the newest fashion, and having a movie-worthy romance with an equally physically perfect man. For men, images in the media of zero-body-fat bodies with huge muscles holding onto stick-thin women create expectations for both men and women of what men should look like.

The media also perpetuates images of a live-fast, die-young lifestyle, and tends to place more value on living life like it’s a never-ending party and less on health and wellness. This YOLO (You Only Live Once) lifestyle is glorified in TV, movies, magazines, advertisements, and music with excessive drinking and drug use, as well as heated, dramatic, co-dependent relationships.

All of this has led to a culture of people who are overworked, underslept, improperly nourished, disconnected from a sense of meaning and purpose, and disconnected from themselves.

Ayurveda to the Rescue

Here’s where Ayurveda comes in. Self-love is central to Ayurveda, as practicing Ayurveda effectively requires accepting who we are in the moment. Ayurveda provides us with an understanding of who we truly are through the doshas: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. Each person was born with a unique ratio of the doshas, which resulted in the shape and size of our body, our mental and emotional tendencies, likes and dislikes, and personality. Realizing our natural mind-body constitution, that these qualities are central to who we are, and that we were born to exist in the world in a unique way, leads to self-acceptance.

Once we understand what our Ayurvedic constitution is, we can understand our imbalances, which are often qualities that we dislike in ourselves. For example, overeating, laziness, and dullness are all symptoms of Kapha imbalance; jealousy, anger, and acne are symptoms of Pitta imbalance; and inability to focus, constipation, and joint pain are all symptoms of Vata imbalance. Once we understand that those things that we don’t like about ourselves are actually symptoms of imbalance, we can forgive ourselves. Understanding our imbalances helps us realize that our imbalances are not inherent flaws, but are simply a result of our lifestyle choices or the environment around us. Understanding our imbalances helps us to stop blaming ourselves and instead take the necessary steps to heal.

Most importantly, Ayurveda provides us with actionable tools to practice self-care. These tools help us create a daily routine of self-care and a lifestyle that revolves around self-love. When we take action in the direction of health and balance, we demonstrate to ourselves that we love ourselves and care about our well-being, since actions are a physical manifestation of love. Some Ayurvedic tools are:

o   Daily self-massage

o   10 PM bedtime and adequate sleep

o   Dosha-specific nutrition

o   Herbs and medicine

o   Meditation

o   Dosha-specific Exercise

o   Connection to nature

When we take responsibility for our own health and have a daily routine that leaves us feeling healthy, beautiful, and simply good, we radiate love.

There you have it! If you are feeling disconnected from yourself, allow Ayurveda to be your gateway back to love.

By Lucia Whalen

https://www.artofliving.org/us-en/how-to-practice-self-love-with-ayurveda
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