What Are Doshas?

We are governed by the five great elements, right? Right! Space, air, fire, water, and earth. Well, from those five elements are created the three doshas. I even made a handy dandy little printout for a visual aid ;) Check out the video or transcripts below.

Vata is the energy of movement.

If you think about space and air, it's very, very subtle, and it moves very quickly, right? Space is the container where things are created. Space is also, in proper Ayurveda, it is ether. It is not just nothing. It is not a space of nothing. It's a subtle gas, and with a space and a subtle gas, there are things that can be created within that space, right? Just a little tip for yourselves. If you are ever in a space where you can't get any creativity or just like, "I don't know why I'm so blocked, I don't have any creative ideas," slow everything down. Things are only created when there's space to do so. 

Space and air create Vata Dosha. Air, you can think of like the wind, and Vata is the energy of movement, and so it moves things from place to place. It moves things up and down. It moves things round in a circle. It is known as the king of the doshas because without Vata, the other two, Pitta and Kapha can't move. Let's move on.

Pitta is the energy of transformation.

Fire and water elements make pitta dosha, the energy of transformation. Pitta transforms things, whether it's our thoughts, our judgments, our food. The fire element transforms things. If you think about what happens when you put something on a fire. You take a log, put it on the fire. Light it on fire, what happens to the log? It's no longer a log, right? It turns into ashes, so it's turned into something else. And that's pitta's job. It transforms things!

Specifically, the most easily understandable is our digestion. Pitta helps turn our food into useful fuel and sustenance that builds our bodies. It takes the nourishment and separates the rest out as poop, so pitta energy sorts, transforms, and it moves it on its way.

Kapha is the energy of lubrication and structure.

Kapha dosha is made of water and earth. Look at your chart: notice how much more dense the elements are in kapha compared to vata? Space and air is very light, very subtle. Pitta dosha has some fire and water and which is a little more substantial, right? Then you get all the way over to Kapha with water and earth, which is quite heavy! Now we got the mountains, the solid earth, the mud, and we therefore, the structure. 

Kapha is responsible for sticking things together, building the structure, and creation. Kapha is the creator, the builder.

These three doshas, Vata, Pitta, and Kapha, construct our bodies, but they're in the greater nature as well. They rule certain times of day. They rule certain seasons, which if you have ever downloaded one of my seasonal blooms you will get the whole scoop on how to manage ourselves during that season.

So again, we have all five elements in us. We have them in different combinations. We all have our own unique combination of elements, which create the doshas, which is why we are completely and totally unique individuals. No two of us are the same.

Now, you're going to be like "What dosha am I?" Good question. If you don't know your dosha yet, take the dosha test. 

Ayurveda will make much more sense once you grasp the foundation of the doshas. From there, you can build.

Homework!

If you already know your dosha, pick on one thing that is hard for you, that's difficult, that's maybe a fault that you see in yourself and make a decision this week to get better at that. Just pick one thing.

TAKE THE DOSHA TEST to find out your dosha.

While you're practicing that, go forward, stay excited and keep bringing Ayurveda to life!
xo
Monica B.