This past weekend, I lead a workshop, The Art of Living Whole: An Overview of Ayurveda.

I spent quite a bit of time preparing for the lecture. This is the first solo (just me) workshop that I have ever lead. My graphic design background kicked in as I tediously designed each page of the 21 page handout (gulp) — many charts where included which hopefully made the heavy load of information digest-able (haha, Ayurvedic joke).

The attendees were bright-eyed and seemed eager to learn about the ancient system of Ayurveda. The goal of the 2 hour workshop was not to take a quiz and broadly pick a dosha, but rather channel the inner teacher and use intuition as well as a clear knowledge of Ayurveda to self-diagnose doshas. Which is Ayurvedic in itself.

We played Dosha Identification Games in which the students could put their understanding of Ayurveda to the test.
For the first game, I wrote a symptom or disease on the white board and the students called out which dosha was imbalanced.

Example:
dullness — Kapha
excessive worry — Vata
irritable — Pitta
heartburn — Pitta

For the second game, the students were split into groups. Each group was given a “client” in which they would identify the dosha for.

Example:
“A 42-year old female complains about “never having enough time”. She is an artist who is always on the  move. She often worries that her creative career, although fulfilling, is the cause of her unpredictable income.” (yikes!)
(answer: she is Vata imbalanced)

The students all did an amazing job at retaining the knowledge and putting it to use during the Dosha Identification Games. They asked many challenging questions about Ayurveda — upon answering these questions the best I could, I was very thankful for my wonderful teachers along the way who have passed the tradition and knowledge down to me.

As each student self-diagnosed, they were invited to enjoy a warm cup of dosha balancing tea! (samples courtesy of Maharishi Ayurveda) (hooray!)

The workshop ended with an meditation of gratitude for intuition. I am grateful for the opportunity to spread the word, share The Movement, and broaden our local community conversation about Ayurveda. Now I can make Ayurvedic jokes, such as “he’s totally tri-dosh” and people can laugh because they understand!