For reasons — so many reasons — I will one day share more in-depth about, I recently found myself checking in to an Ayurveda resort in Sri Lanka for a month. With a nervous system under severe tension + pressure from years of, to put it simply, just not being ok, it was time to do something intensive to catch my breath again as I found my health declining, my body in shut down. I’d been doing all my usual things at home, I was exercising, eating well, journalling.. all the things. But nothing was sticking, nothing seemed to allow me any sort of real space to breathe. I was drowning. Again. A placeI’d been before. In reality, I was burned out at my very core this time. It was beyond me. I wasn’t functioning in my day to day of life + from years of acute strain internally, my body was beginning to break down in ways I’d not experienced as of yet in all the years of working hard to survive the debilitating depths of depression. As my systems were shutting down, I knew it was time to look at things from another perspective.
With just five days before I departed, I booked into a specific destination that specialises in Ayurvedic healing. My first time in Sri Lanka, it was an initiation of sorts into this immersive world of health spas. I’d subliminally known of this ancient way of practicing medicine for years but really I just knew of it in that I practice yoga + had done a few sessions with a practitioner at home here in Ireland a long time ago. I’ve long been interested in + live my life from a place of valuing the unconventional. I guess the norm + don’t just settle for blanket answers around my health. Little did I know though of how deep this all natural, all grounding method is.
Ayurveda is a 6,000 year old belief system rooted in the view that every person’s health depends on maintaining a unique + highly personalised equilibrium of the three biological forces which Ayurveda categorises as vata (movement), pitta (metabolism) + kapha (structure) — which govern all bodily functions from digestion to cellular repair. The system of healing stems from the fact that true health arises from living in harmony with nature’s rhythms, balancing the three doshas — vata, pitta + kapha — to align body, mind + spirit.
Focusing on healing the body as the first port of call when I landed was something of a major shift in my healing. Most of the work throughout the many years I’ve been trying various approaches, was almost always trying to alter my mind, to work on changing my thinking. And it has it’s place for sure but too much talk therapy — or talk therapy in isolation — for me, lost it’s effect pretty quickly as there’s only so much you can work on with from a place of thinking alone. Admittedly, I am just one person but in my personal experience, it’s been a lot of trapped trauma at a very somatic level that has been keeping me stuck in loops of survival. Trauma, that long ago embedded itself into the cells, subconsciousness + nervous system of my body, that forced me into a place of fight, flight or freeze over years + has had a detrimental effect on the body + mind.
With my Ayurvedic immersion, there was no talking. And unsurprisingly it’s exactly where things really began to shift. I began to see shifts I once couldn’t even have dreamed of. For the first week, I could barely keep my eyes open. And to the naked eye I’m what looks like a healthy 36 year old woman but from how unwell I was feeling the exhaustion that lived in my cells — that I’d long tried to deny + hide — finally had permission to be felt. My body wasn’t tired from doing too much, it was tired from being in overdrive for far too long. It was the fatigue of carrying myself through years of survival that finally had a place to exist + with it, I felt like I collapsed literally + figuratively in body, mind + soul.
The way I’d describe the spirit of a place like this is almost impossible to put into words. Think White Lotus but less Four Seasons with a generous presence of monastic energy. The rhythm is slow, deliberate. It’s conscious + patient in its knowing that all healing takes time. There’s a strong respect of the power of being in the moment. Mornings began with warm water to awaken the digestive system, followed by 6am yoga as the sun rises over the Indian Ocean. Then there are the daily treatments: the soft drip of warm medicated oils down the forehead, daily Accupuncture + long rhythmic massages that seem to melt memory from the muscles. The kind of massages that aren’t simply a luxury but a necessity in aiding the movement of all that’s become blocked + stagnant. It’s medicinal + instinctively wise in it’s knowing of what the body needs, guiding it back to a sort of equilibrium no therapy room has ever afforded me.
The food in a place like this can only be described as curative. It’s presence in each day is never about counting calories or being strict with your macro ratio. It’s so much deeper, so much more nourishing. The gentle structure of dosha-balancing meals which focus on the healing properties of an ingredient are simple, healing, + always cooked with intention. Never restrictive either — which might often be typical of a “health spa”, everything is designed to return the body to balance, to help one remember what peace feels like in the body as a lived experience instead of what one might think it should feel like. There’s a strong focus on warming foods. Even in the 35 degree heat + a humidity that had me embracing my Monica-in-Hawaii level of frizz for the month. Like the treatments + herbal medicines, food is undoubtedly a pillar of the process, its presence highly intentional, deeply supportive.
There were no phones at the dining tables. And it’s encouraged to step away from the outside world. Reading, journalling, being encouraged over scrolling, comparing. The shoulds of regular scheduling feel replaced with presence. With being. It’s kind of what you imagine a health resort or spa to be, people are quietly on their own path, there’s little chat, no rush to fill silences, no external noise. Just stillness, + the deep reckoning that comes when you finally stop running from yourself. In contrast to the typical scene lived out in doctors offices, here my doctor didn’t ask me to explain why I was unwell, what I was feeling or thinking, it didn’t seem to have much bearing on the plan or the sense of ego found in Western medicine. My doctor wasn’t trying, actually at all, to prove anything to me as her quiet knowing of how the process works was so deeply embedded in the philosophy of everything they do. They simply observed, listened, + prescribed rituals that worked with my constitution rather than against it. It was medicine that met me where I was, not where I was trying to be or where I was coming from.
Over time, with each day + each treatment, I began to notice subtle yet powerful changes. My digestion softened. My sleep deepened. My breath returned to a steadier rhythm. While deeply individualised, the process is steeped in traditions + specific sequences that simply work. No analysis of your past, no rehashing of the pain you once thought would hold you hostage forever. More than anything, my inner dialogue began to quieten + soften — that relentless hum of self-critique + need for control that had disguised itself as discipline for so many years. I even took off my Oura ring — a quiet act of surrender, a step toward a more lived experience of my body instead of data telling me what to feel. And I’m still living that now, back home.
Over the weeks, Ayurveda taught me that healing is not about fixing what’s broken, but about remembering what has always been whole. In fact it doesn’t considered anything to be broken. It rather speaks to that which needs to be remembered. It’s not about “doing” healing; it’s about allowing it unfold in how it naturally knows how when we simply step out of the way. And out of our heads. Away from the overthinking. It is based on allowing the body guide you home.
As someone with a deep history of hating my body too + always living from a place of working against it, there’s a deep humility that arrives when you begin to see your self + your body not as a project to perfect, but as a companion to care for. To begin to befriend yourself, your. body as the home you will forever be housed in in this lifetime. The power of this place is in learning to slow down, to nourish instead of punish, to listen instead of override at any cost. I found something I didn’t know I’d lost, something I’d ignored for too long: reverence.
As I settle back home into life after this incredibly immersive experience, I realise that the truest transformation isn’t loud. I see in real time that that healing often takes hold in is the invisible. It doesn’t demand evidence or applause. It’s quiet, steady, cellular. The kind that reorganises you from the inside out. Healing, I’ve learned, is less about becoming someone new + more about finally making peace with yourself — body, mind + spirit — as one.
