Personal Nourishment.
I was so torn on whether I wanted to split this page into three parts like the rest of my blog - yoga, meditation, and food (of course). But then I realized, it’s impossible for me to talk about one without talking about how the other impacts my life - I can’t talk about how meditation brings me balance without talking about how yoga brings me to this centeredness; I can’t talk about how yoga calms my mind without talking about how the food I eat nourishes my mind. Well, you get the point! And that’s when it really hit me. This is what the true essence of yoga is.
Yoga is derived from the sanskrit work “Yug”. Yug means union. Yoga is the union between body, breath, and mind, but further than that, the essence of yoga is not only creating this union when you’re spending an hour on your yoga mat, but making every moment a union between body, breath, and mind. This brings me to the beginning of my journey - not just my journey into veganism or meditation or yoga, but simply my journey.
The Breath.
If you speak Hindi you probably understand the name of my blog. For those of you who don’t, ‘Garam’ means hot, so, Garam Garima is my play on words for my hot food and hot me (wink wink). I started this blog to share my love of cooking and all my fun plant-based recipes, but I realized why limit myself to just cooking? Why not share all of my passions? That’s a very long story cut into a nice little blog-like sentence, but now let me tell you all about my journey.
I found meditation at the age of 13 when I was first introduced to Art of Living. Even though I threw a fit before my first course (the last thing I wanted to do during the summer before high school was meditate), I soon fell in love with the organization and all the amazing people I had met. I learned a powerful breathing technique called Sudarshan Kriya and met the amazing founder, Sri Sri Ravishankar, and the rest was history. Every summer I would find myself going back to retreat summers to meet Sri Sri and take the course again. The feeling was indescribable.
Energy.
From when I did my first Art of Living course, I always was attracted to the energy around me. Of course I used different words sometimes - “vibes” or “prana”, but I loved the idea that different practices, foods, people, and especially the breath could affect your energy. I found that kriya gave me an unmatchable calming energy inside me, vegan food gave me a lot of high energy (none of the lethargy that came with eating a large meal), and yoga gave me a balancing energy. The combination of all of these brings me deeper within my meditation and closer to that silence within. That’s why I do what I do. I love sharing breathing, yoga, meditation and all my recipes so that we can all dive in this path of balance, together.
The best part of a journey is it’s never over. I have so much to learn and grow and I hope you’ll come learn & grow with me by trying meditation, yoga, or some yummy food.
If you’ve made it this far, you’re amazing, and even if you skipped over all of that just to read this last paragraph, you’re still amazing. Thank you for checking out my blog. If you do try my recipe, a yoga class, or meditation session - tell me how it went! I would love questions, suggestions, and/or tips & tricks. Love you guys, enjoy!