It can be very confusing to choose how to approach a detox or cleanse, there is so much conflicting information out there. Everyone is jumping on a bandwagon or two and not all approaches are safe, healthy or even useful in the long run. A bit like New Year's resolutions, stand alone short term cleanses are unlikely to have lasting effects. But when they are done with careful planning,, the benefits are life-changing and indeed long lasting.
When planning your cleanse or detox it is so useful to think about what you want to achieve during the weeks of the cleanse, but also what you would like the body/mind reset to give you way beyond the cleanse. You also want it to be safe, steeped in common sense and healthy.
It can be tempting to just ramp up whatever you are doing right now. As human beings, this is how we often operate, in Ayurveda this is called the law of Like Attracts Like. So if you are the type of person who pushes yourself to the limits, you might think a detox involves really pushing yourself to the limits. If you are the kind of person who does not challenge yourself very much, you might fail to go deep enough with your efforts and miss out on the opportunity of a good reset. Yoga and Ayurveda offer you a system called the gunas that will help you create the best way forward for you, based on your body type, personality and state of health.
Take Time To Contemplate On What Kind Of Detox Would Be A Long Lasting Game Changer For You
Understanding the gunas and using them as a guide will help you figure out:
Why you want to detox and how you will benefit
What you need to do to flush and cleanse your body and mind
When to do it
How much to do it
How much is not enough
How much is too much
How long to do it for
So what are the gunas?
The Gurvadi Gunas - The 20 Universal Qualities
There are are also the gurvadi gunas which are describing words, adjectives. There are 10 pairs of them. You can identify the properties and nature of anything with the help of these gunas.
This collection of ten pairs of opposites are universal qualities that exist in all of life. Everything in Ayurveda can be defined according to these qualities and the way that they arrange themselves the nature of things. In nature, they work to maintain equilibrium. They are: cold and hot, wet and dry, heavy and light, gross and subtle, dense and flowing, static and mobile, dull and sharp, soft and hard, smooth and rough, cloudy and clear. Learning to recognize them in your life helps you to discern how to attain and maintain balance.
For example, a rock in the sun could be said to have the gunas of hard, imobile, dense, hot and heavy. As you can see these ‘gunas’ are all adjectives, describing the noun, in this case the rock. In Yoga and Ayurveda, there are 10 pairs of opposites of these qualities or gunas that are used to understand and describe the nature of everything around and within us.
These pairs of opposites are called the gurvadi gunas:
heavy - light dull - sharp cold - hot wet - dry smooth - rough
static - mobile subtle - gross cloudy - clear hard - soft dense - flowing
Gurvadi Gunas and Doshas
Each of the doshas, vata, pitta and kapha are made of a naturally occurring and predictable grouping of these gunas or qualities. Understanding the qualities of the gunas will help you to really understand the nature of these bio-energies and feel when vata, pitta or kapha is moving through your body.
Vata - is like the wind- dry, light, cold, rough, subtle, mobile,
Pitta - is like the fire- hot, light, dry, mobile, sharp, flowing
Kapha - is like the earth - dense, cold, static, dull, heavy, wet, smooth, gross, hard
By understanding these 20 qualities or gunas and the doshas, you can begin to notice them in your life. When you notice that one is out of balance, you can take steps to balance it. For instance, if you are exhausted from too much stress and rushing around doing too much stuff, a yin class would be a great solution to bring you a static, grounded way to invite soft healing. If you have been stagnating at a desk and not getting enough exercise, you might want to do some other form of movement that helps you feel light, mobile and flowing. If you feel hot tempered, you might like to reduce the spicy foods and hot sun.
The Mahagunas or the 3 Great Gunas
There are also the three great or primary gunas that are believed to create subtle energy of every living thing. These mahagunas are in a constant dance, changing and interchanging all the time. There are two extremes and the third is like the sweet point in the middle, a bit like the Goldilocks story.
They are also known as “that which binds.” They are present in all things and beings in the world. They are sattva (goodness, constructive, harmonious), rajas (passion, active, confused), and tamas (darkness, destructive, chaotic). They are the original “elements” or “energetic patterns” that created the universe and are necessary for life. Life is a constant dance between the energies of the movement of creation (rajas), inertia and destruction (tamas) and homeostasis and balance (sattva).
Rajas- is too much, and is all about activity, turbulence and passion. It is associated with the pitta dosha.
Tamas- is not enough and is all about darkness, ignorance and chaos. It is associated with the kapha dosha.
Sattva - is just perfect and is all about harmony, balance and light. It is associated with the vata dosha.
Once you start to see the dance of these gunas in your life, you will notice them everywhere you look and have a powerful tool at your fingertips. Recognizing them as they dance through your life will help you to reduce stress, or inertia and increase balance, peace and happiness. When you learn to spot them, they become your inner GPS system. They enable you to take responsibility for your mental, emotional and physical health and wellbeing.
It really helps me to notice when I am doing things to increase or decrease these mahagunas and the doshas in my life.
For instance:
When I have hot sweat, I notice that my mind races, I feel hot, I feel irritable, and I’ll throw off a layer of clothing and want a drink of cool water. Pitta is at work.
The next step is to trace it back to figure out if there is anything that I’m doing which might be triggering a hot sweat right now. I might notice that I’ve been doing a lot of mental work, drinking coffee, eating spicy or sugary food and thinking about stressful things, all of which increase rajas and pitta.
Now that I know these concepts, I have to smell things like sugary food, coffee, and high-density fatty foods, and I can feel a physiological response. This has been proven in psychology as a phenomenon. Just think of a lemon, and you will salivate! This is the gunas at play.
If I were to indulge in these kinds of things, I would probably get a comedown from and feel exhausted, lethargic and dull of mind and body. This is the pendulum swing of tamas and kapha. I might even feel a bit depressed and in ‘need’ of something to make me feel rajasic again. In the days when I was drinking, alcohol really added to both the rajasic and tamasic state and the swinging of the pendulum. This made it harder for me to see clearly what was going on, or find a way to exit the pattern. I personally just decided to stop drinking altogether and to remove the toxins in order to be totally free from these cycles.
I did a lot of pendulum swinging until I learned the middle way, the sattvic way. Instead of swinging between the highs and lows, there is a peaceful and harmonious middle way that emerges through letting go of the stimulants and doing things like yoga, meditation, being in nature and eating and drinking sattvic things.
Detoxing can help you clear your system from the things that cause the pendulum swing
Many people experience pendulum swings in life between rajas, tamas and back to the center of sattva. Action, exhaustion with the occasional episode of peace and harmony. We can learn how to limit the extremes of the pendulum and exert less energy just being and feeling happy and content.
However, rajas, tamas and sattva and all ten gurvadi gunas have their place and are necessary and particularly useful when it comes to designing your detox. First of all, take the quiz and make a note of which gunas are at play in your life now!
The Guna Quiz- for each question note which of the 10 gurvadi gunas and 3 mahagunas are most at play
Which gunas are most present in the way that you plan and do your daily activities?
Which gunas are dominant in your thoughts?
Which gunas can be used to express your emotional state right now?
Which gunas best describe your body type and shape?
Do you have a spiritual path, if so, which gunas describe this best?
Which gunas best describe what happens when you meditate?
Which gunas best describe how you approach learning new things?
When you go out of balance, which of the gunas goes out of balance first?
Which gunas do you need more of to stay or get healthy?
Which gunas do you experience when you feel balanced?
Once you have done a thorough inventory, you are ready to design your detox. Notice which gunas are dominating and choose a path that will help you to balance things out. If you are feeling heavy and sluggish, choose light foods, lots of water, and exercise to get you moving and taking more action.
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