Beauty Secret #9: Love

So, I am back from my Ayurvedic Seminar in New Mexico - but while the course was teaching my about marmani (the Ayurvedic version of acupressure), I learnt about something that is even more meaningful: love.

Love? Now I know what you are thinking: Put away the prayer beads and fisherman pants and start talking to me about real beauty tips, but what I realized is that being beautiful and open-hearted are one in the same... even in a very direct way.

Dr. Lad (the teacher of my course and renowned Ayurvedic doctor), sprinkled the week with side notes about the link between the way we think and our body's health. According to him, not only did negative thoughts or repressed emotions create toxins, but also displayed themselves in the physical form. This could express itself as wrinkles (Vata worry lines or liver related frown lines), blemishes (excess heat and Pitta emotions), pigmented spots (internal inflammation aggravated by inflammatory thoughts) and muscular pain (sometimes caused by unresolved grief). "Our issues are in our tissues" he would say.

Ayurveda even has emotions which are linked to specific organs and which were included in the seminar's hand-out package: the Kidneys relate to fear and anxiety (also enhanced by lack of sleep), the Stomach relates to nervousness, the Liver relates to anger and frustration, the Heart relates to Worry and the Sex organs relate to embarrassment - and the antithesis to these emotion-caused organ dysfunctions is love.

Dr. Lad went on to explain that true balance was attained through striving for enlightenment, and that this was only achieved through love - which meant we had to let go of ego and judgement. Now this for me is especially difficult as I have made a sport of self-judgement (I think I have spent half an hour trying to decide whether I am forming a double chin or not), but he said it was not only for ourselves but for the health of those around us, and as health practitioners, it was imperative that we treat and diagnose our patients/ clients from a place of compassion and love (starting with ourselves). And while this may sound to you like a lot of new age jargon, I believe him as I felt healthier than I have in years just being in such an environment of positivity.

The class itself was filled with Western Doctors, Massage Therapists, Yoga Teachers, Acupuncturists and other Ayurvedic Practitioners, and as the week wore on I noticed how nurturing this group was. And being from a large city in which we mostly keep to ourselves (and eye contact straight ahead, I was surprised by how much perfect strangers were smiling and waving at me. One classmate even stopped me as I passed her and said peacefully "I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you yet, I have just seen your beautiful face in class." I was completely taken aback (did I mention I wore no make-up and fisherman pants the whole week?). And she herself was also beautiful with kind eyes and a beaming complexion.

I reminded me of how beautifying our intentions can be - and while I knew this already, I needed to be reminded that while we can have things and attributes we want to change about ourselves, we cannot get so attached to them that they become more important than our sense of self-acceptance. Needless to say I am working on bringing these serene mountain-side thoughts into the busyness of life back in Toronto.

And I do believe in the power of mindset and karma - because when I landed at home, Ben was waiting for me at the airport in a full tuxedo and with a bouquet of flowers (these kind of grandiose gestures are totally out of character)...and I couldn't have felt prettier.