IF YOU’RE FACING challenges in your relationship, there’s no shortage of advice out there for you. Friends, family, podcast hosts, best-selling book authors, and Instagram poets all have ideas about how you should think, feel, and act in order to better understand your partner and be understood by them. But there’s another resource you might want to consult about how to show up in your relationships: one of the world’s oldest health systems, Ayurveda.
Ayurveda is based on the mind-body connection and the concept of doshas, or energy archetypes. Each of us is born with a combination of the three doshas— vata (air and ether), pitta (fire and water), and kapha (earth and water)—in varying amounts, although there is typically a primary dosha that influences most of your decisions and interactions, including how you react when your relationship hits a rough patch. (To find out your unique blend, take the quiz at yogajournal.com/doshaquiz.)
Understanding your dominant dosha —and that of your romantic partner—can bring empathy as well as balance to your relationship. This in turn brings harmony to the everyday and helps you evolve as a couple, since a committed, long-term relationship needs some creativity and spontaneity (vata), passion and purpose (pitta), and stability and comfort (kapha).
IF YOUR PRIMARY DOSHA IS VATA ...
What you bring to relationships
This story is from the January - February 2022 edition of Yoga Journal.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the January - February 2022 edition of Yoga Journal.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Learning to Hear the Voice of Self-Care
How to discern what really matters.
Inclusive Yoga for All
A Down syndrome diagnosis set this family on a path to make yoga accessible to everyone.
For the Joy of Practice
Doing yoga without attachment to the outcome can bring unexpected gifts.
Be Kind to Your Spine
Your vertebral column is a series of complex, interconnecting parts that support your every movement. Here's how to keep it safe.
A Skeptic of Chakra Balancing
The experience helped me make peace with things that can't be explained.
Are We Having Fun Yet?
Bring play back into your practice with three styles of yoga that can get you out of your head and bring a smile to your face.
12 Ways to Use Blocks You've Probably Never Tried Before
The beauty of blocks? They not only meet you where you are in your practice, they take you beyond where you ever thought you could go.
THE SCIENCE OF AWE
THOSE MOMENTS IN LIFE THAT STOP YOU IN YOUR TRACKS IN ASTONISHMENT? RESEARCH SAYS EXPERIENCING MORE OF THEM CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
What Your Doshas Say About Your Dharma
Ayurveda can explain so much more than what's out of balance.
The Future of Yoga
Yoga has been evolving for thousands of yearsfrom a mind-and-body spiritual practice to a billion-dollar "lifestyle" practice. What's next? We asked futurists, teachers, and thinkers what to expect in the next decade and beyond.