Ayurveda is all about our awareness.

Have you ever stayed up too late, then snoozed the alarm clock a few too many times the next morning, rushed through breakfast, maybe just downed a coffee? Then you eat a crap lunch because you can’t be bothered. Your whole day just has a really dull, slow, defeated feel to it.

Have you ever stopped to figure out why?

What about the day you wake just before your alarm, and notice how alert and refreshed you are? You get up with time to watch the sunrise. A string of nourishing and supportive things seem to unfold through your day and you fall into bed that night feeling like “that was a really good day?”

Ayurveda helps us connect the dots. We can architect that good day any day we want to. Perhaps we want to be on our A-game for an important work event or family celebration. Perhaps we want to optimize our creativity for a passion project we are working on. Eventually, we just want a good day. Because we can. Every day.

The principle we apply to our Ayurvedic habits is called Kaizen. Extracted from Japanese business models we prioritize small continuous improvement that transforms us in a purposeful direction.

“Embrace the seasons and cycles of life, there is beauty in change” – Bronnie Ware

 

Nature is a cycle. Each season moves through a specific and reliable pattern. It invites us to do the same. In the “Year of YOU” we Kaizen 10 Ayurvedic habits into our lives watching how we adapt and change them given the season.

Learning to Kaizen is throwing away the “No Pain No Gain” model of self-improvement. Instead, we invest in less stressful, small scale change that doesn’t rely on our willpower or ability to “pull up our bootstraps and get stuff done.” It drops stress and helps us create a “sacred” easeful orientation to our lives. By shifting our mindset to Kaizen we immediately drop out of stress response. We feel our breath return and our bodies relax.

Once in this mindset, we can ask “What do I need right now?” and use our toolboxes from Ayurveda and Yoga to help us find the most appropriate answer to the question.

We want the answer to be simple, supportive, and easeful.

Through Kaizen, we cultivate easeful living, orienting our life away from stress. This recapture energy that is sucked dry by over-scheduling, overstimulation, constant eating, worrying and anxiety. Once we start to feel this excess energy, life shifts in a whole new direction, we begin to drive our lives towards a deeper life purpose. Our Dharma.

Calmness, Ease, Love, Joy are the driving forces of our day. We feel the pull of our unique passions and have the time and energy to explore them.

All through Kaizen.

We use this simple principle to make changes in any part of our lives. Make the step so small that it would be hard to fail:

• A 2 min meditation with a timer to gauge success
• Get up 15 mins earlier and drink a cup of warm lemon water
• Do 5 sun salutations instead of having to do the 60 min workout
• Eat a wonderfully nourishing lunch so as not to snack all afternoon
• Add one act of self-care to a bedtime routine
• Oil your feet
• Take one minute to breathe deeply
• Make a cup of tea
• Make your bed
• Go outside

Pick the small change that would most help you. Start following the Kaizen process to implement it into your daily rhythm. Watch what happens. It is fascinating.

Reach out if you want to start a transformational journey with this as a guiding principle.

Juicy Stuff,
Jill