We are a month past solstice now, and the light is returning bit by bit. Slivers of light eventually turn into bright, long days, and we are just getting the first tastes. Maybe it’s time to do a little, little bit more—the light implores us. At the beginning of the year, a couple of weeks ago, I invited people to do a bit, or a lot, less. Not everyone has that luxury, I know, but those who do, should consider it.
Doing less for a time frees up playful energy. When you do less, hopefully you get better perspective on how to do more when more is called for. And maybe, as the light returns, you want to think about doing more, and what you would like to do.
I have a proposal that steals energy from a wasteful place and reboots it into a more positive realm—so maybe you are doing about the same amount, but with re-situated energy. The gist is, while many of us have no time (so very true for many of us, I know!), even with so little time, we have the energy to hate some part of our bodies or our selves.
It takes a surprising amount of energy to mount self-critiques, and where do they lead? Often people just get stuck in ruts: I hate my thighs, cellulite is disgusting. I hate my neck. My lips are always chapped—gross! I hate my pasty skin! I am aging like crazy—look at my face! Oh my god, did I actually gain 10 pounds just in my ankles—overnight? What the hell are these pimples trying to tell me? Oh man, I’m getting a beer gut, guess it’s just all downhill from here.
We all grapple with these complaints. But let’s not just take the fire of self-critique and burn our delicate selves. Most of us could use a lot more tenderness than we allow. The part you hate about your body needs your attention the most. Your self-criticism is a deep call to action: If you don’t like a part of your body, most likely, it needs your help! Get to work! Utilize the fire of your frustration to motivate actual change.
I love to give clients the tools to manually affect change in their bodies. Many of us have no experience with this concept. You can manually boost your immune system with a salt scrub, and improve circulation. You can use a gua sha, a traditional Chinese medicine massage tool that scrapes tissue, to investigate heavy, cold saddle bags on the thighs, or to release burning pain.
Google gua sha, and check out the way the body responds to this deep work: releasing fireworks of lactic acid from the muscles, blossoming yellow bruises related to bile and black and blue bruises related to deep tissue coldness. These are productive marks; if it’s alarming, educate your loved ones that you are actually not abused, it’s just body work! Or go a little slower.
Cellulite? Dry, cold tissue. Pick up the gua sha, the “sacred knife,” as my teacher calls it, oil up the thighs, and start scraping. I have seen cellulite transformed by this in conjunction with other therapies. But the gua sha is that therapy that really helps you face it: I don’t like this part of you, body, but I’m seeing that you were loudly disobeying me as a call to action. Let’s get to work and invigorate and hydrate this dense, curdled tissue!
Are you one of those that feels like you suffer from seemingly overnight weight gain, especially in the armpit area or maybe the ankles? Honey, you didn’t gain weight—your lymph is sluggish! Doing salt scrubs, regular movement and exercise, regular steams and sweats, and using the gua sha on areas of stagnation will help so much. And make sure you’re eating high-quality salts.
Steam is an outstanding therapy for so many conditions—skin issues, edema, low immune function, dry facial skin that appears to be quickly aging. If you can get to a steam room, get in there regularly to support positive change. Take the gua sha in there and work on problematic joints, using a body care oil like coconut or sesame to break down crunchy or tough tissue wound up in your joint. Bring a sprig of rosemary, inhaling its scent and even kind of whipping your skin with it invigoratingly.
Can’t get to a steam room? Try a simple facial steam. Boil a big pot of water and throw some sprigs of fresh rosemary or mint or chamomile in the water. Make a “tent” over your head with a towel or blanket and as the vapors are cool enough to handle, hang your head over the pot of steaming herb water and use the towel to seal your steamy head room. Breathe deeply, exhaling the grief that sits in the lungs. Put some sesame or coconut oil on your hands and massage your sweaty face, from center to the periphery, clearing out stuckness from under the eyes, smoothing out the stress on the forehead. Massage the stuckness to the periphery of the face, encouraging it to drain into the lower regions.
Facial steams hydrate the skin—the opposite of the drying qualities of aging. The steam and massage helps to move puffy pockets of stuck mucous, as well as draining the general stuckness that comes to the face when life’s problems are strictly matters of the head. Drain the face and emotions out of the head and toward the heart. The heart is the real clarifier. When we get stuck in our heads, we are neglecting the powerful emotional center—the heart—and that magical muscle is the pumping, bubbling center of emotional alchemy.
Connecting the cerebral happenings of the brain and the more spiritual region of the heart is the throat. For many, especially older women, the throat and neck are dreaded areas of visible aging. I see the throat as the essential connector between the poles of the brain and heart—using the power of the throat, the voice, we are most able to connect those two powerful poles.
Don’t like your neck, feel gross about the throat? None of us escapes signs of aging, but all of us can reform our unloving opinions about how our life experience show up on our bodies. Know that hydration and avoidance of the sun is paramount to skin health. Also know that gravity is an inseparable force on this planet, not much you can do about that. Tone the throat and sing! Express your voice, even if that’s hard for you. Eat seaweed to nourish the throat area and the thyroid (as long as you aren’t already on a prescribed thyroid protocol). Take capsules if you can’t tolerate the oceany taste. See http://www.wilddevoceanseaweed.org/?post_type=product&paged=1 for excellent seaweed from a true sea witch.
Instruction on self-care ceremonies is my specialty. This medicine way changed my life. One of the most positive changes was transforming my hater stance on myself into a proactive regimen of artful, exploratory, and sweet rituals of self-knowing. Call it self-worship, if you like, it’s along those lines. I am better than the sad old, terribly common story of the absolute decay of age. I am getting better with age, and you can too.
So go head, give that beer belly a good scrub. Loving it up is a good place to start. Scrub and sweat, get that circulation going, flush that pasty skin! Stop being a Chapstick head and get to the root of dry lips—systemic dehydration, especially in the digestive tract. Try a hydrating seaweed enema, switch to high-quality salts, and be more mindful about sipping water throughout the day. Warm water is best, ½ ounce per pound of body weight per day, plus more if you are an alcohol or coffee drinker, smoker, or sweating a bunch.
Be creative, be sweet to yourself, and get to work. And most of all, have fun. If it’s not at least kind of fun, you’re not going to do it. Put on some tunes, get some private time, witness positive change! People change themselves in ways they assumed only a surgeon could. Yes, cellulite can change! First step is, strangely enough, showing your foe some love.
For more info on some of the self-care modalities discussed in this article, see my previous post http://www.elementalayurveda.com/blog/2014/10/15/self-care-a-love-story.
Eva Saelens is a professional member of the National Ayurvedic Medical Association, with over 1500 hours of training in Ayurveda, massage therapy, and Ayurvedic treatments. She graduated from the California College of Ayurveda in 2013. Subsequently, Eva spent a year interning and studying Ayurveda, Tibetan medicine, whole foods nutrition, aromatherapy, and pancha karma at the dhyana Center in Sebastopol, Calif., and in India.