← The Nourished Nervous System
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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, Kristin 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. Welcome back to the Nourished Nervous System. Welcome. If this is your first time listening. So I hope you're doing well. I hope you're finding some moments to pause and breathe and be in your body. And here in Maine, we are in that transition into fall. So it's technically still summer. There are three more weeks until the autumn equinox. There are still flowers blooming and veggies and fruits producing. The days are still warm, sometimes hot. The leaves are still mostly green, but I can feel that shift in the air. The nights are cooler. And I'm just noticing in my garden that many of the plants are starting to reach their peak. They're starting to fade out. Some of them are drying out, some of them are dying off. The days are getting shorter. And that vata season is just around the corner. So I've been reflecting a lot in this change of seasons, and one thing that struck me the other day is that this transition, this time we're in right now, is the equivalent of perimenopause when we look at the seasons of our lives. So if childhood is kapha season, it's spring, it's earth and water. It's that time of new energy. Everything's budding. There's also this moist, soft, fresh energy that's happening in spring. It's that slow and steady build. It's the thick green stems of plants and the soft, vibrant leaves unfurling. And then puberty happens and we enter into pitta season of life. It's the summer of life. It's the fire and water. It's accomplishment and drive, figuring out who we are and making home, maybe having relationships, maybe having children, maybe having a career. It's the flowering and fruiting. It's full of energy and vigor and bees buzzing and bright flowers blooming. And it's active and it's full. And then the vata season of life is the air and space, time. It's postmenopausal, and it's fall and winter where there's this inward energy. Leaves dry out and drop the outward expression of plants begins to wilt and die off and the energy of the plants starts to come back into center, into their roots or out into their seeds. Everything gets drier and lighter and more subtle. And then in nature, as we move into winter, everything gets quieter, more still, more inward focused. And so perimenopause is this season that we are in right now here in the Northern hemisphere in New England. It's this transition from summer to fall. And one of the things with this time of year is that there's a lot of variability to the season. It could be hot enough to swim one day and then sweatshirt in hot weather the next. Makes me think of hot flashes. It can be a bit windier, a bit stormier, and it's just the season of change and preparation for winter. So let me zoom way in for a moment to the annual seasonal cycle, letting go of the cycles of life for a second. So pitt to season summer hot and intense. The heat can have a drying quality on the body. You can see after you've been in the sun for a long time that your skin gets drier, your hair, hair gets drier. We're often sweating a lot in the summer where we can become dehydrated more easily, which can make the body more dry. There's also often a lot of movement in the summer. The mobile quality. We're working in the garden, going for hikes or runs, or playing outside with the kids, or swimming, going to social events, walking more. There's just a more mobile quality. Maybe you're traveling in the summer, going on vacation. And the summer can also be more erratic with those vacations or kids on school break or having family or friends visit or going to visit family and friends, or more social time and events. So all of those things can create some more erratic qualities in our diet and sleep patterns and just day to day life routines. And so those three qualities, dry, mobile and erratic, also happen to be three of the qualities of Vata dosha. And so as we head into vata season, there's going to be much more of those qualities present in the environment. And if you're tuning in here for the first time and don't have a background with Ayurveda and don't know what I'm talking about when I talk about kapha and pitta and vata, I am realizing that I just kind of went into things. I do have a beautiful offering to introduce you to the Doshas. If you go into the show notes, there'll be a link for the ayurvedic dosha quick reference guide. And it has three beautiful charts that lay out really visually and easily what each dosha is all about. So check that out. And so this transition is a really great time to start to balance those qualities so that vata doesn't get too out of balance as we move into the fall. And I think these are the three really important qualities to look at. One of the other qualities of vata is cold. But coming out of this, into this transition of summer, we're still really hot from the summer season, so we don't need to heat our bodies more just yet. That will come later in the season. And the light and subtle, those are qualities we can also look at this time of year because there can be a lightning that happens in the summer through all of the movement. And the drying quality can make things lighter. But I think if we can address the dry quality, the mobile quality, and the erratic quality, it's going to really help with all those other qualities that might be coming up. So staying in this micro seasonal this time of year, in our annual seasons, I often focus on balancing the dry quality with hydration, drinking more room temperature or warm water, eating brothy soups, eating juicy fruit like grapes and blueberries and berries and vegetables that are juicy, cucumbers, zucchini, summer squash, and also oiling my body. So I like to actually oil throughout the summer because I do find that with the sun that my skin does get really dry. But if you haven't been oiling in the summer, this is a really good time to start to put oil on your body. And I do have a self abhyanga booklet that I created and the link will be in the show notes if you want to check that out. And so this time of year, even though I'm still really busy and the beginning of fall actually feels especially busy, I'm really trying to find those small ways to slow down and balance out that mobile quality. So finding moments of stillness, a moment outside to look at the clouds, a moment of meditation or lying down and doing a shavasana or a yoga nidra. So for me, sometimes that still quality can also come from decreasing the amount of sensory stimulation I have. So I love to listen to stories or podcasts or music while I'm doing work around the house. But right now, in this time of year, I'm doing that less. Not to say that I'm not doing it at all, but I'm trying to find more moments where I'm just choosing quiet, even if I'm still Active and doing something. There's a way that having less sensory input helps to create more stillness. The same could be true with what you're watching this time of year. Like, what are you taking in through media and through your senses? And how can you choose things that might feel. Feel a little bit more slow or nourishing in that realm? So that helps to balance the mobile quality. And then I also am right now bringing more rhythm into my life. So small rituals and routines can help to create some rhythm for those winds of vata so they don't spin out into a hurricane or a tornado. We don't need that. So for myself, I'm getting my meal times and bedtimes back into a rhythm after the chaos of summer. I'm also creating a ritual of taking a short walk after I eat lunch. I'm noticing for myself that I can get really into the story of my busyness. And that story of my busyness says that I can't take my breaks, that I have to keep on going. And so I'm really checking that story and taking 10 or 15 minutes after lunch to go out and take a walk and be outside and take some deep breaths and move my body and clear my mind and noticing how much that helps me to just be back in my body as a human and to challenge that voice that tells me that I'm too busy. Because really the to do list is never going to end. So I might as well take the breaks when I can. But there are so many ways to create a little bit of rhythm and ritual in your day. So pausing for a cup of tea or coffee and giving it your complete presence. We talked about this recently in the episode with David Crow, especially with like herbal teas, of drinking your herbal tea and focusing on the herbs and giving it your presence and making it a meditation and how that can both increase the power of the herbs in your body, but also that has this positive feedback loop of also increasing that moment of presence. So you could have a moment of your day where you have a one song dance party. You put on one song and dance and move your body. You could do a morning yoga or exercise practice, whatever it is that feels good for you. It could be putting your feet in a foot bath with some herbs at the end of the day. It could be taking a shower and having complete presence and imagining the water just washing away all of the stress from the day. Whatever it is. I talk about this stuff so much because these little tiny things, when you can create that rhythm with him, really makes a difference in life, and it's just keeping up with it and having some consistency with these practices to start to create those rituals. I have two offerings in the show notes that can be helpful with this. One is a Nourished for Resilience workbook that has a bunch of different tools in it to help you to find what you want to bring more present in ritual into. And the other thing is the Nervous System weekend reset. And this is a template to create your own reset. But there's a lot of great ideas in there of ways that you can start to create these rhythms and rituals. So check those things out if this is something that you're interested in diving a little deeper into. And so having that rhythm and the routine can really help to balance the erratic or changeable quality of vata. So now let's zoom back out to those bigger seasons of life, to this perimenopause transition, the perimenopause season, and the same ways that we work with these qualities for the annual seasonal transition. We can do this in the bigger transition of our lives. The pizza season of life is the same as pizza season. It's busy and full and intense. And the perimenopause time, I know for me is still very busy and full, especially having a young child during this time of life, which is a whole other podcast episode. But for so many people in this transition, there's not a lot of space for a really big slowing down. But how can we begin to think about these qualities, dry, mobile and erratic, and find the small ways to balance them on a daily basis? And how over the years of creating these practices, how that's going to impact this bigger transition from pitta season into Vata season of life. The other thing I want to acknowledge is the challenges of this season. I love all the seasons and can see the beauty in all of the different seasons. And there's always this part of me, this time of year that has this little bit of wistfulness or sadness that summer's ending and it's going to be cold soon. And just the way life changes with that and almost a nostalgia for this summer, that's literally I'm still in. And I think we can do this in life too. I think we live in a culture that's really obsessed with summer and youth, and there aren't many rites of passage in general in our culture, let alone for this transition of life. And I think this is starting to change a little bit. But in general, we look at this time of life as an accumulation of Symptoms which there can be many uncomfortable changes that happen in our bodies, in minds and spirits. But it's also, it's a time of transformation. And transformation can be uncomfortable. And even though it's uncomfortable, there's a power in this. There's a power in the ways that our bodies and minds are changing as we move through this transition into something different. And I think there's really this opportunity in this to know ourselves more fully and to create the boundaries that we need to navigate this season more gracefully. And there can be a challenge in letting go of those past versions of ourselves. I've talked about this a little bit recently, like this portal that we're walking through and. And it's easy to feel that wistfulness and that nostalgia for that summer of life as we feel the changes happening. But I've been feeling very comforted lately and really leaning into nature and watching what's happening around me and seeing that the plants, they let go of that outward form and they move their energy down into their roots or into their seeds, and that the trees let go of their leaves when the time is right and move their energy more central, more inside. And seeing that process happening in nature reminds me that I am a part of nature. That these processes that are happening in me, even though they're uncomfortable, they're a part of the process and they're a part of me growing into myself in a lot of ways. And if nature can do it, so can I. Right? So can you. So if you are in this perimenopause season, try incorporating some balance for these qualities. For dry, mobile and erratic. See what you can do to create those rhythms and rituals in your life that will help you to navigate this transition a little bit more smoothly. So for your small step this week, wherever you are, whether you're in the Northern hemisphere or in the southern hemisphere, whether you're in perimenopause or not, this is a time of transition. Whether we're transitioning from summer to fall or from winter to spring, take a moment to reflect on the transition that you are in. And if there are any small rituals that could help to ease your transition. Okay, friend, thanks so much for being here. If you're in Mid Coast Maine, I'm offering Ayurvedic treatments in Belfast. And I'm going to start teaching a Ayurvedic yoga class at Ananda in Belfast on Thursday evenings from 5:30 to 6:30. So come check me out if you're local in the area and if not, I'll be back here soon. 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.