The idea of health, or wellness, has intrigued me for years. What does it really mean? How do we measure it? What are the markers that tell us whether we are healthy or not?
It was clear to me, early on, from backpacking around the world and having exposure to a wide swath of countries, especially India, that measuring health was not going to come down to simplistic numbers.
While numbers can give us broad strokes and some important guidance (think of blood pressure numbers), we can’t give them all our power.
How much we weigh, how much money we have in the bank, or how many carbs we eat in a day do not hold the keys to our happiness or health.
If it were that simplistic, then the masses would be able to dial in health in a formulaic way! And we all know that is not the case.
Creating the Path to True Health
So what is the path to creating a truly healthy life?
After all these years of studying, examining, reading, contemplating, and writing (6 books later!) I will say that health lies in the total energy we create across our lives by living a holistic lifestyle. We can’t put all of our energy into one thing (or one area of our life), like food, because one thing is never going to make us truly “healthy”.
All of our lifestyle choices, including the foods that we eat, but also the ways in which we care for our bodies, the relationship choices we make, our work environment, our home environment, how we spend our time, what we watch, what we listen to, where we go to exercise or to find solace…all of these many choices interact into synergistic whole energy.
The sum of that whole energy is going to determine the level of your overall health and well-being.
Adopting the Four Cornerstones of True Wellness and Beauty for Holistic Health
The approach that I am so passionate about teaching now is our Four Cornerstones of True Wellness and Beauty. Seeing your life through the lens of these Cornerstones, you can pinpoint strengths and weaknesses; you can see where you need extra nurturing and you can be sure to autocorrect to live a truly healthy life.
We all have blind spots.
It’s easy to focus- obsess even- on the things that we like, or that we are comfortable with.
In a similar vein, Ayurveda teaches that if you are Vata dominant in your constitution (meaning more air/wind energy, like me!), you will naturally prefer Vata-dominant foods, such as dry, crispy crackers. I look at my past obsession with pretzels and know, yep, that is true!
So the power of the Cornerstones is allowing you to observe and become introspective about the structure of your life to build a sturdy foundation of balanced, nourishing living. Only in this way will you be able to create a truly healthy life.
Sure, it might feel more nebulous (hazy), and out of your comfort zone to think about Emotional Wellbeing or Spiritual Growth. It can mean looking at some things you’ve pushed down or ignored, or that have been kept in the shadows.
There is a reason though that the great yoga guru Paramahansa Yogananda said that introspection is one of the greatest tools of progress.
It is only by claiming our wholeness that we claim our true potential, and our true health. And so introspection gives us the power to see where we need to put more energy and focus into our tools and practices in any particular Cornerstone.
This holistic focus moves us along on our righteous path toward the true fulfillment and joy that comes from true health!
Four Tips to Begin Your Healthy Living Journey
Here are some tips in each of the Four Cornerstones to get you started on your healthy living journey.
These tips are just the beginning. I encourage you to explore the many other resources we have for you on Solluna’s website including meditations, delicious food recipes, amazing probiotics, a zillion great podcast conversations, and so much more! ♥️
First Cornerstone: Food
In the Beauty Detox Solution, I was describing food in energetic terms, and I didn’t have the language to express exactly what I was saying. Now I have it through my subsequent Ayurvedic studies: Sattvic.
Sattvic foods are those that contribute to harmonious, centered energy and health.
These are foods that digest easily and are nutrient-rich, and yet more than that are energetically beneficial. Everything is essential energy.
Here are some Sattvic Foods to focus on eating:
- Greens and other veggies
- Seasonal fruit
- Whole grains (preferably gluten-free, soaked and sprouted)
- Sprouted nuts
- Sprouts and microgreens
Second Cornerstone: Body
Your body is your temple carrying you through this life. It’s important to remember that energy-intensive processes like digestion need to be optimized so as not to wear down your temple faster than necessary.
That’s why I’ve always focused on digestion and creating supplements that are key for optimizing digestion, including Detoxy, which flushes your body of unnecessary wastes in a non-laxative way.
I also believe in non-irritating forms of exercise like walking (which is my main form of exercise these past few years), although some bodies seem to thrive on more high intensity! Listen to your body and its unique messages.
Third Cornerstone: Emotional Wellbeing
In order to stay healthy, we have to keep our emotions in check and move away from drama and wild emotional swings. These create inflammation, and stress hormones…they even change the composition of our blood!
I’m not talking about suppressing your natural emotions.
The path to more steadiness and calmness, essential for true health, is filling and anchoring your mind to truth, and casting out untruths. What I mean by that is staying anchored into the truth of equality of all, love and oneness. This helps to cast out limiting ideas like not feeling enough, feeling competitive with others, feeling judgmental and so on.
This is a complex Cornerstone for many of us, that is greatly helped with guided introspection and discussion. This is the purpose of our online Solluna Circle. Come join us!
Fourth Cornerstone: Spiritual Growth
True health is not really possible without self-connection. Self-connection is at the heart of this Cornerstone, which is all about connecting to our True Self.
I am a huge proponent of meditation because it changed my whole life.
It’s best to meditate as close as possible to waking, and also ideally in the evenings.
Meditation will guide your life to be balanced between external stimulation and inner connection, which is where the voice of your intuition will open up for you and guide you to feeling more flow across your life.
Check out the whole library of free meditations I’ve created for you as well!
The method I teach is called Practical Enlightenment Meditations™ and is inspired by the work of the great yoga guru Paramahansa Yogananda. Yogananda has a series of home study Lessons on Kriya yoga, which I recommend as well if you want to go really deep into the science of yoga.
Please check out some of the resources I’ve linked to here, and I look forward to connecting with you more! I dedicate podcast episodes to answering readers’ and listeners’ questions, so please feel free to write in questions or other comments.
Grateful we are connecting and much love!!
