A (0:04)

Welcome to the Nourished Nervous System, an exploration of stress, the nervous system, and resilience for parents and other humans through the lens of Ayurveda, somatics, herbs, and a whole lot more. I'm your host, Kristen Timchak, an Ayurvedic health counselor, stress and resilience coach, somatic stress release practitioner, and mother of a tiny human. Please join me for information and insights, deep thoughts and small steps to help you nourish your nervous system. Hello, hello, welcome, and welcome back to the Nourished Nervous System. I hope you're doing okay out there. I hope you're doing more than okay. I hope you're doing really well, considering everything. So the idea for this week's episode came about because I started seeds in my sunroom a few weeks ago. And I have this experience every single time I start seeds, which has been many, many times in my life, but every time when the seeds start to sprout, I feel totally surprised and in awe of that it worked. Every time. It's like, oh, I give you all the necessary conditions to grow and you grow. How amazing. And this year, when I had that response in my head, I was like, what is that all about? Is it on some level that I think I'm going to mess it up somehow, or that I have to be more involved than I actually am for these seeds to sprout? Is it that I don't fully comprehend the power of that spark of life that when given the right conditions, it wants to grow and flourish? And granted, I have had seeds that are harder to grow than others, some that do require special conditions, and some seeds that I've tried to start that just haven't worked. So there is that. But every time there's this sense of wonder and awe, which it's really cool that we can take these dried out little things and put them in some dirt and give them some water and some light and a little bit of warmth and that spark of life, it just happens. It just grows. All of a sudden there's this little tiny green shoot. And it is an amazing thing. But I think there's also something to, on some level, me not believing that I'm going to do it right or feeling like it shouldn't be that easy. And I think this is a really great metaphor for how many of us can think about our health. That there's a lot of times, not all the time, sometimes we are in a place with our health that needs a lot more intervention. But there are times when we just need to Give our bodies the right circumstances for health to flourish, and it will flourish. We don't need to be in control of it all. We don't need to do the healing. We just need to create the circumstances. And that vital life force, that prana in our bodies, it wants to move towards healing and regeneration. And so when we create those circumstances for healing, the healing can happen. And like I said, there are some circumstances where we need a lot more intervention, depending on where we are in that process of disease. And if you want to listen to an episode on the Ayurvedic stages of disease that kind of address this process of disease from an Ayurvedic perspective, I'll link that in the show notes. And I think about this also when I do Ayurvedic bodywork, because I'm not the healer. I'm not trying to fix or manipulate the tissues. I'm literally putting the healing oil on the body and working with marma points, which is the vital energy system of the body in Ayurvedic thought. But I'm giving the body the conditions to heal. I'm helping to decrease excess doshas and bring the body back into that balance point. But I am not doing the healing. The body is doing the healing. And I really love metaphors. And so when the seed sprouted and I had that moment, I really let this one play out in my mind a little more, because each of the plants that I sprouted is different. They all sprout with that spark of life force. But as they grow, each plant has different needs. A marshmallow plant is going to have different needs than a cactus. A fern is going to have different needs than a sunflower. And same thing, if you've ever grown houseplants. Each houseplant has different needs, different light, soil, water conditions. And so we can see the makeup of the elements, the five elements, the Ayurvedic doshas, everywhere. But especially in living beings like plants, we can really see this in plants, that each type of plant has different circumstances for it to thrive. And they all need the water, the soil, and the sunlight, but they need it in differing amounts or differing types. Certain plants need certain types of soil. Some plants need bright, direct sunlight. Some plants need filtered sunlight, or some need very little at all. Some plants thrive in the shade. And this made me think about when I moved across the country. I brought three plants from my house in California with me. I brought a Christmas cactus that a friend gave to us when my son was born. And I brought this beautiful blue star Fern that I actually won on a local Instagram giveaway. And then I had this little tiny cactus in a tiny orange pot that I had on my kitchen windowsill. And I wasn't very attached to it, but I didn't want to get rid of it. So kind of last minute, as we're packing up and getting ready to leave, I just stuck it in the cup holder of my car and. And even though I saw it every day, I kind of forgot about it. It just lived there in my cup holder. And so every night when we got to our hotel or motel, I'd bring the fern and the Christmas cactus inside. And we were traveling in early summer, but the little tiny cactus just lived in my car. And so we were traveling in summer and my car broke down right outside of Vegas on 100 plus degree day. And luckily we made it to a garage with this angel mechanic that was willing to fix my car that day. But the plants were in my car all day long. By the time we got to our hotel that evening, the fern, which has these big light, feathery, fingery looking fronds, was starting to look really dry and discolored and a bit brown. I wasn't sure I was going to make it. By the time we got to my in law's house in Ohio, the Christmas cactus was doing great, but the fern was really hurting. Its leaves were all turning yellow and drying up and dying. But with a bunch of water and having it in the sun porch of their house when it was very humid there in the summer, I was able to save the fern. All of the leaves that were dying died, but some new little sprouts started popping up. If it had been a maidenhair fern, which I tried to grow this past year and have had very bad luck with, it would have been dead. But luckily this is a resilient type of fern and it did come back. But if you think about those leaves of the fern, those fronds, they're light, they're airy, they're spacey, it's more vata dosha, it needs more moisture and humidity. And that little tiny cactus in the tiny orange pot, I forgot about it. I didn't even bring it inside in Ohio. It lived in the cup holder of my car all summer long. When I would notice it, I would just think, I'm going to leave it here for now. I'm probably going to end up getting rid of this little plant. Six weeks later, we finally move into our house in Maine. The ferns leaves all fell off, but there were new leaves Sprouting up. The Christmas cactus was just fine. It really was super resilient this whole trip. And finally I brought the tiny cactus inside, thinking I'm going to get rid of it. And I was so surprised to find that it sprouted a new sprout on the side. It not only survived, it was thriving from living in my car all summer. It was actually beneficial to it and helped it. And so I'm telling you this story because we all have different conditions in which we thrive. It's not the ferns fault that it couldn't handle the hot car all summer. It wasn't doing anything wrong. Those were just not the conditions that it needed to thrive. But it was resilient with a lot of caring and water and attention. The fern came back. It's thriving again. The Christmas cactus is still doing great. And my little tiny cactus is fine. But I don't think it loves the cool, moist climate of Maine. I mean, just talking about this, maybe this summer I'll put it into the cup holder of my car and see if it does better there for the summertime. And I think we live in a world that would like to homogenize us, that would like to tell us that this is the way to be healthy, this is the way to thrive. This is the way that you should be living your life. We get so many messages from all over the place that we should all be the same. We should all be able to handle certain things. We should all be able to do certain things. But the truth is, it's a lot more nuanced than that. Some people are ferns and some people are cacti, and some constitutions are very resilient. Others go out of balance much more easily. Some plants are really easy to figure out and take care of, and others are much harder. That maidenhair fern, I just could not figure out how to help it to thrive. And I know even for myself, my own body has gotten a lot more sensitive in the past few years. In my twenties, I was more of a cactus. Just stick me in the cup holder, I'll be fine. But now I'm more of a fern. I may be more of a blue star fern than a maidenhair fern. I am resilient, but I need to be more aware of what my body needs, and I need to make the time and the space to prioritize it. And I can get into a place in my head around this of not feeling strong enough or judging myself because I'm so sensitive or feeling defeated when I'm doing all the things And I'm still not feeling good. And by all the things, I mean all the things I think I'm supposed to do. But time and again I continue to find that when I simplify, when I really tune in and listen to my body and create the conditions for thriving, my vital spark, my prana, wants to thrive and I start to feel better. And it's taken time for me to really tune in and really find the things that I need to thrive. It's taken a lot of experimentation. It's taken a lot of just listening more and more and more. And it changes. It's always changing. And for me right now, in my journey, in this season of my life, in this season of the year, a few of my conditions for thriving, some of the big ones are prioritizing sleep, getting enough sleep. I need a lot of sleep. I would love if I didn't, but this is my truth. Avoiding gluten and processed sugar. And Lord knows I would love if I did not have this sensitivity, if this was not one of my conditions. Because gluten is delicious and sugar is delicious, but this is not what helps my body to thrive. Another condition for me is moving my body in the morning, meditating and then getting into nature. These are the baseline. These are the things that if I do these things consistently, I feel pretty good. And there are other things that come in and out. I take different kinds of supplements to work with my Hashimoto's. I've tried different types of meditation that my exercise, what it is, might shift throughout the year. There are other things like creativity, learning, community and relationships and friendships. There are other things that help me to thrive. But this is my soil, water and light conditions. These are my basics. We all have them. I may need a different type of soil, water and light than you do, but we all need these things. And so one of my questions for you is what are yours? What are the handful of lifestyle habits, ideal conditions that you have found that you need to thrive? And how do you know you're thriving? How do you connect to your life force? So I was recently listening to this fantasy series. It's called Legendborn by Tracy Dion. And it's so good, it's kind of young adult. If you're into fantasy, I recommend it. Really unique story. But anyways, I'm not going to get into the plot of the book here, but what I wanted to share is that in fantasy, there's often a world of magic. There's different kinds of magic. And in this book there's a kind of Magic called root. And then there's different types of root. And one of the root practitioners, specific kind of magic was described as connecting people to their life force. And I just love this. It really struck me, this sentence, connecting people to their life force, because essentially that's how I think about Ayurveda and Somatic work in its most simple terms. How do we connect with ourselves and quiet all the noise that's out there that's telling us how we should thrive? How do we connect with our own bodies, our own life force, and give it the conditions to grow and flourish? Your conditions may be different than mine, different than your best friends, your partners, your co workers, that person on Instagram, but we all have our conditions to thrive, and it's just about discovering it and then being consistent with it. I think that's one of the things I just love so much about Ayurveda. It's not about trying to fit yourself into someone else's mold of health, but about discovering yourself, discovering your balance point, which is going to be different than other people's, and discovering what actually works for you. If you're a fern, you're not going to thrive living in the cup holder of the car for three months. It's just not going to work. So don't put those expectations on yourself. In some ways, I feel like living in the cup holder of the car could also be a metaphor for pushing too hard, for overworking, overdoing, not listening to your body, trying to keep up. And there are some cacti out there that really thrive in that, but it's actually a small percentage of the population, and some of us can live in the cup holder for a short amount of time. But I think our society is giving us these messages that we always need to be pushing, that we all need to be cacti, that we constantly need to be working and pushing and doing. I mean, not that the cactus was doing any work in my cup holder. It was just hanging out there, but it was hanging out in this environment that would kill other plants. And I think there are those people you hear about those people who they smoke and they drink and they eat junk food and they live until they're in their 90s or whatever. And I don't think it's that those things that they're doing are healthy for them. I think they are just. They're a cactus. They have that constitution that can withstand a lot of intensity. And I just think that most of us are not. And that doesn't make you weak or less it just means that you're trying to fit yourself into a lifestyle that you can't actually thrive in. And I know for myself, connecting with my life force, honoring the conditions that create health and thriving for me has also meant that I've had to let go of certain things in my life. Certain habits, lifestyles, and also certain ideas about who I am, certain aspects of my identity. And it's not easy. It's a process and it takes time. And it means that I'm not as laid back and easy as I used to be. It means that I have more needs that I need to take care of. But it's worth it. It's worth it for me to be affirmed and to thrive instead of trying to fit myself into that cup holder. Okay, my friend, thank you so much for listening and for humoring my plant metaphor. I think about plants a lot and I think about Ayurveda a lot. So it's only natural that at some point there would be this intersection of Ayurveda and plants as a metaphor. And your small step for this week is to you can journal about this, you can think about this, you can make a list, but write down a couple of your conditions to thrive, things that you know that you need to thrive. And I want to make the clarification that it's not the things you want necessarily to thrive, but the things you know you need, which sometimes we have to get honest with ourselves. There's often a lot of things that can be attached with our identity. You may want to be a raw foodist, late night dj, but actually your conditions to thrive are sleeping nine to ten hours a night and eating warm cooked food. And so it's just getting really real with ourselves about what are our actual conditions for thriving, what are my actual soil, light and water needs, and not trying to fit yourself into somebody else's boxes. So, yeah, so try to think of three of your conditions, write them down, and notice what happens if you take the time and the space to prioritize those conditions. Okay, my friend, thanks for listening. As always. I am so incredibly grateful for you and I'll be back next week. Hey there. Thanks for listening. I really appreciate you. If you weren't listening, I'd be sitting in this room talking to myself and that could get kind of weird. So I really, really do appreciate you. If you can think of anybody else that might enjoy listening, please share. And if you share on social media, please tag me. Nourished nervous system. Have a beautiful day.