How often do we take for granted our ability to rewrite history? 

It’s easy to give up on New Year’s resolutions for wellness when you never fully believed them in the first place. When it comes to your health, you may feel doomed by “genetics.” However, that isn’t entirely true. 

While genetics play a role in certain predispositions, your family history is not your destiny. You are not bound to the fates of those who came before you.

Armed with the right tools, you have the power to flip the script.

I was just a girl when I became aware of the tragedy around me. Every time I landed in India to visit family, another matriarch or patriarch would succumb to the long-term effects of diabetes. As a young child, I put a stake in the ground. I decided that under no circumstances would I be destined to carry forward the horrible family history of disease and devastation I saw unfolding in front of me.

Though I was young at the time, I made it my mission to find a solution and reverse the diseases that ravaged my family once and for all. Since childhood, I have researched diabetes, constantly working to discover how to beat this troublesome adversary. Now, modern science has finally shown us the path to victory. We now know that we can turn the ship around and reverse this condition (and others like it) through our gut microbiome and by reducing inflammation, focusing on weight management, exercising regularly, and creating a healthy lifestyle.

So this year-- how can you combine modern medicine with a more holistic approach to taking control of your health?

After twenty years of intense study, I have discovered a secret formula for improving health outcomes. The fusion of modern scientific knowledge with ancient wisdom from Ayurveda can revolutionize our health trajectory.

These days, people will try anything to “biohack” their way to health. The truth is, all of those crash diets and lifestyle formulas are nothing but rat races. They keep us spinning in circles, looking for the answer but never finding them. We don't need any more rat races. We need real, sustainable change. 

Here’s what that sustainable change looks like.

It's Time To Change

Something is broken within us. To start a healthier journey, we need to change our language, terminology, understanding of the self, and perspective on how we navigate self-care daily. We must change our mindset on what is possible for our health and abilities in this lifetime.

So often, people resign themselves to their bodies and their current health trajectory. This saddens me deeply. It can be different; you are not condemned to keep moving in the direction your body seems to be moving. You can make a change and move in the direction of holistic health.

‍Forge a new path! Choose a new way of being that is entirely yours and design a life around the health you crave. Begin to build a path to becoming the person you want to be. You can have the vibrancy you desire; you can look and feel the way you want to. It just takes one step at a time. 

The societal pressures that women feel to fit within a specific mold should not affect how we choose to manage our health and bodies. Instead, we must each choose to design our health based on the energy levels we desire, the vibrant glow we want to have, and how youthful we want to feel throughout the decades.

We have a unique opportunity in the modern world to completely transform our bodies and experience good health, a sound mind, steady energy levels, and a full spirit.

Putting Out The Fire

Inflammation at all levels is our number one enemy in this war, yet we keep our heads in the sand. We tend to ignore the signs as they come and justify our symptoms as the cost of aging. We are willing to sacrifice our long-term health for one more bite, one more experience we just can't deny. As a result, we become sluggish, tired, irritable, filled with pain, lethargic, and dissatisfied.

Inflammation is ravaging our bodies-- brain, gut, joints, organs, skin, and more-- and yet, because we often can't see it, we choose not to address it. We continue to ignore this enemy until we can't put out the fire.

The truth is, we know better. When our children experience pain or discomfort, we will not rest until we find and neutralize the culprit. But when it comes to our own bodies, we are much less courageous. We rationalize the symptoms away, ignoring it and adding it to the list of unresolved aches and pains.

We don't just stuff away our physical symptoms, either. We shove down our feelings, thoughts, emotions, and internal suffering. These issues are enormous alarms that ought to alert us to the fact that something is going on underneath the surface.

There is a root to all this pain: we simply do not value ourselves enough to take a closer look. We do not prioritize ourselves or our health. I am not condemning us for this reality. It's in our nature. Especially for women. Women are nurturers-- we are trained to take care of everybody else first. I get it. That was my story, too.

After many years of living this sacrificial lifestyle, I finally learned to point the spotlight back to myself. In doing so, I learned a profound lesson. When I shine that spotlight on myself and focus inward, I begin to rise. I become incandescent, radiating so much more vibrancy, joy, optimal health, and energy. I become limitless. 

It sounds counterintuitive, but focusing on our own journey and self-care allows us to better serve others. I saw this to be true in my own life. As I saw my joy overflow and my limits start to fade, I was unleashed as a powerful force in the world. I became a better entrepreneur, a better mother, a better daughter, a better wife, a better friend; a better everything to everyone. And you can, too.

How To Have The Life You Crave

Do you want this freedom for yourself?

Here are three simple tools from Ayurvedic wisdom that make it incredibly easy to start the journey.

Step 1: Daily Tongue Scraping

Use a copper tongue scraper to gently scrape the tongue in the morning 7 to 14 times. This habit will detox all the organs of the body. It will also ignite the digestive fire, which helps to reduce inflammation and lymphatic congestion in the system. This is a holistic practice to help your body overall.

Step 2: Start Using Curcumin

Take a potent curcumin supplement to start reducing your inflammation right now. We are all inflamed; I've never met anyone for whom this isn't true. Take Turmeric Gold or Inflammation Relief and start the journey of actively reducing inflammation in your body daily. You will be shocked at the transformation that starts happening once your inflammation goes down.

Step 3: Create Anchor Points

Build three anchor points throughout your day-- time slots during which you take 15 minutes and do nothing. The goal is “collecting peace.” Scientifically, this is taking us out of the sympathetic nervous system and into the parasympathetic nervous system, which is key for the body to rest, digest, repair, and heal. We MUST take ourselves out of constant fight-or-flight mode if we want to regain optimal health. 

During these small 15-minute time slots, try asking yourself essential questions like:

• How do I feel right now?
• What have I eaten today?
• When is my next meal?
• Does my schedule leave adequate margin time for meals, hydration, supplements, and rest?
• Is my schedule reasonable?
• Am I overbooked?
• Is there anything bothering me internally?

By directing your thoughts inward and evaluating these questions, you give yourself room to breathe. Answer these questions honestly and make adjustments as necessary. Sometimes we are overzealous and become overcommitted in our lives. We must allow our intuition to guide us to prioritize our health and remind us that we matter, too.

Conclusion

These are three simple ways to kickstart your journey to Ayurveda. Every one of us is unique, with different needs and different health journeys. I invite you to dive deeper into your unique mind-body constitution (dosha) so you can enjoy better balance throughout the year and the seasons.

You can use my custom-made DOSHA QUIZ to help you better understand yourself. As you embark into the next season of your life, I invite you to choose yourself, choose your health, prioritize your self-care, and build your life piece by piece in a way that supports you.

Vibrant health requires an investment in preventative healthcare for total longevity. It means my body feels and looks beautiful at this stage of my life; it means I feel strong and able to do anything I choose to do. It means my brain is firing on all cylinders to be the entrepreneur and legacy creator I am. 

It means I have the vibrant energy necessary to accomplish everything I set out to achieve and bring my total energy to every endeavor I embark upon. It means I hold the energy and love I need to be the best version of myself for everyone I care about and engage with. True wealth is having abundance in energy, joy, happiness, ability, strength, and freedom. This holistic, vibrant health… this is what it means to be truly rich. 

The question is: how do you measure vibrant health in your own life, and how are you positioning yourself to make that a reality today?