My journey into Ayurveda began on my bedroom floor. It started with me regaining consciousness after a seizure and realizing something had to change.
Here is what I had to change – I had to find a path to health that didn’t involve countless medicines, or more surgeries that only seemed to fix my symptoms and never the problem.
What was the problem you ask? The problem was that I was a typical, busy American. I juggled my military career with the ongoing demands of family and kids, on top of that I spent hours commuting each day to an enormously stress-filled job that had me working nights, weekends, and across the world.
Each time that I needed more time for my life, instead of resting and getting back into sync – I depleted myself more. Less sleep led to more caffeine, less time to eat led to on-going poor food choices. There just wasn’t the time to just “be.” The pounds crept on over the years and so did the ailments.
I did try to get well as each day brought on new symptoms. I exercised, tried diets, and of course, listened to my doctors. I started having bone and joint issues in my early thirties. This lead to a whole decade of prescriptions, injections, and surgeries. And there were so many pills. There were pills for pain, pills for inflammation, pills for the insomnia and more pills for anxiety. My blood pressure was up and needed medication, there were pills for cholesterol; and no great surprise, also more pills for stomach and digestive issues from all the medication that I was taking.
None of these treatments addressed the root of the problem as ‘over-medicated’ and ‘seizures’ was added to my list of symptoms.
My path back to wellness starts with the seizures that left me lying on the bathroom floor – I knew at that moment, there had to be a different way. I researched natural ways to health; I wanted something that would look at the root cause, I wanted something that would not have me blindly medicating symptoms and I found it in Ayurveda and its sister science Yoga.
I started by learning about Ayurveda, just the basics and it made so much sense to me. My yoga practice started in my living room with a few poses from an Ayurveda book. I realized that instead of treating the individual symptoms, in order to heal, I had to treat the whole me. Ayurveda gave me a blueprint and a toolbox. It provided me with the specific treatments to detoxify my body and the right nutrition for my metabolic type to replenish and rejuvenate.
Ayurveda gave me the lifestyle tools to support my body and over the course of the next six months, my body and health improved dramatically.
My prescription list went from many to none, and I started feeling and moving better than I had in years. I lost weight and gained strength and balance. The results were amazing and were confirmed at my doctor’s visit when my test results came back much-improved.
It didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen. As I consistently took care of the “whole me”, all those symptoms started going away.
Ayurveda has really been a life-changing experience, and that’s why I’m driven to help others so that they can learn how to incorporate Ayurveda into their lifestyle. I have changed my life through yoga and Ayurveda and that has led me to studying complementary and alternative health.
I’m a registered yoga teacher with Yoga Alliance and my background includes serving as a Medic and a Mental Health Councilor in the U.S. Army.
I’m excited to support the Holistic Highway in helping others improve their quality of life through Ayurveda and I am looking forward to working with you.
