CORE VALUES OF HEALTH: ARE RULES HELPFUL?
It is early morning here in Pune, Maharashtra…western India. I am a month into a deep treatment (post menopausal support) that I have specifically been preparing for, for the last year. Known as pancha karma, this series of treatments and routines has many rules. Rules put into place to help safeguard my health, my digestion, my mind and the actual treatments I have come here to participate in. Participate is the key word as I am every bit as important to this process going “well” as the vaidyas (doctors) in charge of my care, the team supporting their direction and the wisdom that Ayurveda has so wisely outlined. And while it is true, this boat is being guided by sincere and learned vaidyas, with deep and reverent wisdom and a complete understanding of all the life & medical sciences, it can only go as far as I am able to take it.
Hence the rules.
Ayurveda has many rules. I have heard this echoed through clients and community. Rules of what, when, how much, why and more. Being a person who tends to not like rules, of much sort, they can land hard. In my mind’s eye, when I picture me and Rules together I see myself in a warrior stance, with full armor and there is definitely a long staff involved. And why is that you ask? (Did you ask??!) Why is there this image of Rules as one I battle with? I am not entirely sure, though when I think of rules my mind often goes to the American society I was brought up in full of rules and shoulds and should nots that are founded on ____ WHAT? Science? Philosophy? Ethics? No, not much. I think of U.S. “rules” to be in place to serve a very limited population of people founded by that very same limited population of people. And so this gives me a little window into my resistance.
And, with all that, I find myself here, in Pune doing some of my own deep work, hoping to grow and connect and support others more deeply as well. And, here I am, faced with my comrade, Rules. But this time she presents differently. This time she presents as a sacred thread extended to help me. She is giving me guidance on what and how much to eat, when and how to rest, when to use (or not) vital energy and so much more. It has felt supportive, vitally necessary, freeing and a strong frame to hold me up during the hard when my digestion is weaker and my capacity is much less. She is giving me wisdom to lean into when I do not understand what is happening and why. She is my time tested, trusted ally.
It’s giving me pause to consider that sometimes rules can be useful. A guiding force, like in this instance, that has been whispered and handed over for thousands of years. Originally stepping aside of religion, much older then we can imagine and focusing on the living sciences and the tenets understood through nature, and the natural world around us, Ayurveda can be wise guidance that honors how we live, on many levels. And with that, there are some Rules.
If you are someone who considers Rules similarly to how I have described, maybe ??? consider how rules that are based off the life sciences (after all Ayurveda translates as “The Science of Life”) could offer support. I believe and now understand, that this is what they are here for..in the truest form. And that the “rules” I have often been conditioned by, that have made very little sense to me, are something entirely different.
There are two “rules” I’d like to consider, things that I am working with every day that Ayurveda offers and are making a really big impact:
Life force matters. Where is the energy of your life, your attention, your heart going? Can you find a way to tend to the force of your life, taking time to move the energy, rest the energy, expand and contract the energy? Staying with it, listening and honoring. This “rule” if you will, impacts everything starting at the very core: Digestion. If we expend beyond our capacity, over and over again, there is nothing there to digest it. Food, ideas, activism, support, emotions will blow the fires of digestion wayward.
Eat when you are hungry. Eating to a schedule vs. eating when the body gives signals it’s ready to eat are two VERY different things. We are often a culture of convenience. We do things that are predicated on what fits the schedule. But the systems of our body that we absolutely need in place to have health do not work on timelines. They work on the important dance of the bones and the juice, the tissues and the pathways. These signals are based off wise physiology as old as anything we can possibly imagine (and older than that even) that give us necessary cues about all the major operating systems of our body. We want to honor these cues, we need them to work. And the digestion is the absolute hub of it all.
So the things I am considering about this subject are whether or not these are actually “rules” or are they wisdom being whispered through the truth of our deep knowing? For me what I am finding is that deep knowing is so much different than the category I have used to shelf “rules” in. They deserve my sincere attention and intention so that I can listen, learn and respond accordingly.