I became an Ayurvedic Practitioner.
It started with donuts. Let me explain.
Every morning before sunrise, I trudged through the dark, frigid, sketchy streets of downtown Portland, Maine to work the cash register at the famous local donut shop.
No A/C in summer. Tips-based pay. A sugar addiction I should have seen coming.
As I sold and ate donuts, I was saving every penny I could for Ayurveda school.
I felt deeply called to Ayurveda. But I was considering investing $30,000 I didn't have into a field with almost no job market, no license, and no guarantee there would be a career waiting on the other side.
Every day I thought: Am I crazy?
As a last-ditch effort to make a decision, I committed to my first Ayurvedic cleanse.
Somewhere in the middle of it, I was sitting on my bathroom floor - 5am, meditating, in the pitch dark so I wouldn't disturb my roommate before my shift - when years of tension I'd carried in my shoulders suddenly began to throb, pulse, and release.
Over the next few days, my energy became unlike anything I'd ever experienced.
My sugar cravings disappeared.
The doubts that had followed me for months began to dissolve.
For the first time, I wasn't trying to convince myself or weigh the pros and cons.
Something I can only describe as a knowing settled into every cell of my body.
Of course this is my path.
That moment changed the course of my life.
I went on to train at the Ayurvedic Institute with Dr. Vasant Lad - one of the most celebrated Ayurvedic physicians in the world.
I served as his scribe, became the lead practitioner at his panchakarma healing resort, and guided more than 1,000 people through transformational Ayurvedic cleanses.
What I witnessed there confirmed what I'd felt on that bathroom floor.
Yes, these are real. Yes, I ate them. Daily.
The body is never failing us. It's trying to tell us something.
How I work
The work starts with listening.
To your story. To your body's vocabulary - the tongue, the face, the ears, the nails. These tell me where digestion is slow, where heat has accumulated, where the nervous system has been working overtime.
What I do isn't protocol. It's translation.
I draw on years of practice and on what's worked for other bodies. But I trust your body's response over any pattern.
We listen. We observe. We adjust.
Both of us paying attention. Both of us curious.
I ask the same question from a dozen angles until your body's answer comes through.
And I trust that your body knows - sometimes more than you do, sometimes more than I do.
Whether it's years of shoulder tension like it was for me, weight that won't budge, or fatigue that sleep can't touch - these aren't signs something has gone wrong.
They're the body asking for something it hasn't been given yet.
Today I help high-achieving women over 30 who are doing everything right but still feel heavy, inflamed, and exhausted learn how to work with their body instead of against it.
So they can lose stubborn weight and feel sexy and powerful again.
In the boardroom, in front of the mirror, and in their partner's hands.
That's what this is about.
If any of this resonates, I'd love to meet you. Book your Reclaim Your Body Call.
With love,
Alex 🌻
