Stay in your center – My friend Steve likes to say this and it’s good advice on so many levels. With Ayurveda there are ten pairs of opposite qualities that apply to every thing within and around us: hot/cold, moist/dry, mobile/stable, heavy/light, soft/hard, solid/fluid, dull/sharp, smooth/rough, cloudy/clear and subtle/gross. Like increases like and opposites can be used as medicine. This means everything can be used as medicine because everything as a quality!
Successful balancing requires us to stay in the center between all of the extremes. If we are feeling cold, we can do things to warm ourselves. We all know to put on a sweater but we can also eat nourishing food with heating spices that warm our digestion and think thoughts that warm our heart. It’s interesting to start seeing these pairs of opposites at work in our whole self – mind, body and spirit. Health is not just absence of disease it is ongoing balance. We are always balancing as we move through the ages and stages of our lives.