I just got back from a month in true retreat. I was rather cryptic about where I was heading and I committed to not sharing my experience in real time on social media. Golly, what freedom! I’m happy to now flesh out the details because I reckon a few of you will find them interesting.
Where did you go?
India. To a hard-core Ayurvedic clinic – Vaidyagrama – in Tamil Nadu, an hour from Coimbatore, which is just north of Kerala. Which is to say, eons from any semblance of a tourist trail.
Why?
As many of you know, my autoimmune journey is a perpetual one. I manage my disease. And I do this by experimenting. I’d been told for years that Ayurvedic treatment was a boon for AI. I very much subscribe to the Ayurvedic tradition of yoga, meditation and the eating principles of this ancient discipline. But I wanted to see if a committed 3-4 week panchakarma (see below) treatment would take my healing to loftier heights.
I’ll be frank. I didn’t want to go. My acute sense of smell and hearing rendered India a torturous prospect. Every bit of me wanted to go hiking in Switzerland. And I even had an escape plan if I couldn’t cope (I’d researched