The Bathing Elephant Goddess: Introduction

Anyone who knows anything about Ayurveda can take one look at me and guess that I am kapha. I have the dark curly hair, curvy body, softer than soft skin, and a soothing voice. All of this is obvious. As I read and learned more about the kapha dosha it became more and more apparent how much of my composition is taken up by this abundant dosha. Slow moving, check. Satisfied doing nothing, check. Prone to depression, check. Full of compassion, smothering, great memory, codependent, clings to emotions, radiates love, full of mucus, overweight, easily chilled. Check, check, check! The good and the bad, I have got them all.

At moments I am representative of kapha in balance. Unfortunately, I often exude many of the characteristics of kapha out of balance. My experiment was to challenge myself to treat my kapha well by reducing it and not allowing it to overflow in its abundance. I started with the observation that I am kapha dominant. I then formulated the hypothesis that my general well being would improve by reducing kapha in my life. To reduce kapha I decided to wake up earlier, get more vigorous exercise, keep myself warm by using sauna and limiting cool drinks, and eliminating sugar. My experiment was ten days total. I happened to be sort of sick for the first 8 days of the experiment. This caused me to be a little more lax than I would have liked to be. Maybe it was the illness, or it could have just been my kapha nature to resist the challenge of change. Either way, I learned a lot from my life style modifications even if they were less drastic than I had originally intended.

While kapha is the majority of my constitution, I am also easily vata aggravated. I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder at age 14, a typical vata ailment. I am very sensitive in every possible way, including having a sensitive nervous system and subtle body. So part of my challenge is to reduce my kapha while also taking care of my vata. My vata has been very out of balance in the past few months for obvious reasons. I am busy, plain and simple busy. This leaves me with the obligation of getting active to reduce my kapha, but to also do less to take care of my vata.