Why Nourish to Heal?
After years of practicing in the field of nutrition and wholistic health, it became acutely clear that in order to heal our issues, it is important to come from a standpoint of nourishment. This is why our motto is "nourish to heal."
As a culture, we have become so accustomed to force, to imposing change, to violence toward the body-mind, to shame, to bypassing our experience, to favouring depletion, and to clinging to the belief that we must restrain and withhold in order to correct.
Today we have a body of research that begins to point to what traditional systems have known for thousands of years. That we are best served by armouring the body-mind with health and wellbeing, that we do not regulate our nervous systems by berating and criticism, that more (quality, personalized) nutrition is necessary for gaining homeostasis - not restriction. We understand that the gut-brain axis exists, and that the microbiome has a myriad of influences on the whole of the organism, a concept that is a cornerstone of traditional medicine: that digestion is the foundation of health and health outcomes. There is evidence that points toward the damage of restrictive eating and diet fads on digestive function, not to mention mental health, the outcome of which will always produce an opposite effect to what was desired. As well, there is more and more research that directly connects nutrition, herbal medicine, food and health attitudes, nervous system regulation, circadian medicine, environmental influences, and access to appropriate movement, to preventing dis-ease states and bringing the body back to health.
As we exist as a whole, made up of interrelated systems in the body-mind, it is impossible to isolate one difficulty and attempt to fix just that, ignoring the calls of the other effected parts. Therefor, to consider the question of health and wellbeing, there needs to be relationship. Relationship to all of the challenges of the internal dynamic system, access to therapeutic relationship by way of health practitioners, and a loving, self-compassionate relationship with the self.
Nourish to heal embodies this approach. Nourishment to all that has been restrained, depleted, and ultimately malnourished. Malnourishment is not body size dependant. The measurement of nourishment is the presence of vitality, of hope, of an open heart, of warmth, acceptance, and of truthfulness.
Ayurveda is one of the oldest, and longest consistently practiced medical systems in the world, along with Traditional Chinese Medicine. Its complex and comprehensive applications are far reaching and bring us the tools to approach wellbeing in countless ways, harnessing an advanced system of healing.
Click here for a deeper discussion into Agni, Prana, Tejas, and Ojas, four of the many fundamental concepts in Ayurveda.
