What are YOU made up of? Part 2
February is an interesting month for me personally.
First, of course, let me step back and acknowledge that #1, it is Black History Month. Most important.
And: it’s my birthday month. It’s also the month of hearts, flowers, and all things pink and red. It’s in the middle of winter (my least favorite time of year), but I grew up in California and Florida, so it was a great time of year for a birthday before I lived in Denver.
When I was younger (and, okay, even a little bit now), I wanted that day to be all about me. For the world to sort of stop. I had very high expectations around it.
I also had romantic expectations about the combination of my birthday and Valentine's day, even though I used to say I HATED V day because it was a "Hallmark concept."
Long story short: I actually love flowers, hearts, pink and red. I can go without the rest.
Wanting things to be an exact certain way, or even saying to yourself, “if this experience just had <fill in the blank>, it would be perfect," is a pitta quality.
It's a form of (attempting) control.
I have a lot of pitta in the mind. This is a blessing and, well, has a shadow side.
Making an effort to enjoy winter this year. Photo by Ron Michael Photography.
I went through a basic rundown of the doshas last week. If you missed it or forgot or want to read up again, it’s here.
So how does this relate to our own makeup as individuals? This is a question I definitely got from some of you after last week!
Remember, these three energies are essentially archetypes, and are like the primary colors. We are each our own combination, resulting in a unique constitution (color!).
Looking at your doshic makeup is like breaking apart the amount of red, yellow, and blue in seagreen turquoise. (Credit here on the primary colors analogy to my teacher, Dr. Siva Mohan).
The three show up like this, in the body, mind, or both:
Kapha:
⛰️Superpowers: loving, stable, affectionate, gentle, high capacity for stress, big heart
⛰️In the body: round face, larger build, beautiful large eyes, lustrous hair and skin, stamina, high immunity
⛰️Pitfalls in the mind: attachment, nostalgia, slow to change
⛰️When out of balance: may gain weight easily, sluggish digestion, sluggish elimination, general feeling of heaviness
Pitta
🔥Superpowers: ambition, sharpness/clarity of mind, discernment, fiery nature, intelligence, transformation, intense
🔥In the body: medium build, high/sharp appetite, angular jaw, muscular, thinner hair
🔥Pitfalls in the mind: anger, self-critical and judgemental, has to be "right"/logical, controlling
🔥When out of balance: burnout, gastritis, heartburn, heat, skin rashes, sensitivities
Vata
🌬️Superpowers: creativity, spontaneity, flexibility, enthusiasm, highly intuitive
🌬️In the body: tiny or long/tall or irregular build (pear shaped), small bones, long face, small eyes
🌬️ Pitfalls in the mind: anxiety, fear, overwhelm, "monkey mind"
🌬️When out of balance: trouble gaining weight, gas, bloating, constipation, pain, fatigue, issues with memory
As I’ve talked about previously, perimenopause is the time we start transitioning from pitta time of life to vata time of life. This transition doesn’t happen overnight, just like summer doesn’t turn to winter overnight.
What gets tricky is that the nature of the constitution we’re born with starts to get overlaid with more vata dosha coming in, on top of whatever imbalances have accumulated.
I can help you understand all of this for YOU. One of the things I do in 1:1 coaching is an in-depth assessment to help you understand 1- the tendencies you were born with and 2- how those tendencies are playing out now 3- how to manage the imbalances.
We will also be doing a deep dive into this in the upcoming Ancient Wisdom for the Modern Perimenopausal Woman.
In case you were curious and made it this far, I was born on February 19th, and I'm turning 45. I'm on the Aquarius/Pisces cusp, and I'm a vata-kapha body with triple pitta in the mind.