WAHNETA TROTTER
Wahneta Trotter is the Founder of Satmya Ayurveda, offering Ayurvedic consultations, treatments and professional training in Austin, Texas. A certified Ayurvedic Specialist and Panchakarma Specialist, Wahneta received her formal Ayurvedic education and training from the California College of Ayurveda. She has also studied with world-renowned specialists and authors in the field of Ayurveda including; Dr. Svoboda, Dr. Douillard, Dr. Shrestha and Dr. Cravatta, Vijaya Stern, Ysha Oakes, David Crow, Prashanti deJager, and Dr. Bharat Vaidya.
A senior certified yoga teacher in the Rod Stryker system of ParaYoga,and a clinical practitioner in Ayurveda for 20 years. Wahneta has recently produced and recorded the meditation CD Yoga Nidra: Awakened Sleep, Awakened Life, soon to be available in the iTunes app store. Outside of Satmya Ayurveda, Wahneta has also created an Ayurvedic Therapies Training program, Rajaveda.
Follow Wahneta:
Instagram: @wawaji108
Website: www.satmyayurveda.com / www.rajaveda.com
This September Wahneta will be hosting Panchakarma training for Ayurveda professional in Hague. Find out more here.
“I AM ENDLESSLY AWED BY AYURVEDA AND THE ABSOLUTE MIRACLES I HAVE SEEN IT WORK ON PEOPLE, IN PEOPLE AND FOR PEOPLE.”
WHAT DOES AYURVEDA MEAN TO YOU?
Ayurveda has come to mean many things to me throughout my 26 year relationship with it. I was first introduced to Ayurveda in 1999 while studying yoga in a lineage based, not yoga studio based, program. This lineage was rigorous in its requirements, including the study of Ayurveda. All aspects of yoga were intricately woven with the principles of Ayurveda as its guiding ethos. As a result, an Ayurvedic doctor came to teach us the fundamentals of Ayurveda including its history, philosophies such as dinacharya etc… I knew from the moment she wrote the word ‘Ayurveda’ on the board that this was my destiny, my Dharma. I didn’t know how or when, I just KNEW. So, I dove in. I spent five years in gurukula format with this doctor and stayed true to my yoga studies and sadhana. They were essential to living my life as deeply, as purely and as powerfully as I have ever known. They were heady years spent with my head in the texts, my heart in sadhana whilst raising two kids. It was a truly joyful time as Ayurveda and yoga healed so much of my life, myself, my heart and my relationships. Ayurveda gave me a framework and a structure to guide my daily life, to view the world through a different lens and enrich my inner life. It brought me back to me. So, you could say back then that it was my self-healing program.
Through dinacharya, ritucharya, study and consistency, Ayurveda has been nothing short of pure joy for me.
Once I had achieved a level of proficiency with my basic understanding of Ayurveda and advanced my yogic studies, I knew I wanted to move on and learn Ayurveda as ‘clinical science’ so I could bring this amazing system back to my own community. Like I said, I knew that it was my destiny, my Dharma. Once I understood it as an ancient system of healthcare, or profound and supremely intelligent medicine, I went to school to become professionally trained. 20 years later, it still captivates me with its intelligence and capacity to heal when all other systems of medicine have failed. To me, Ayurveda has boundless capacity to heal the sick and sustain the healthy.
WHAT DREW YOU TO AYURVEDA?
The intelligence. The wisdom. The logic. The order. The endless opportunity it offers to learn more and more and more about how we heal, how the body works, how consciousness flows through the physical and the subtle worlds. How integrated and undifferentiated we are. How to live with all this intelligence in a way that changes you, improves you, heals you and empowers you. Mahat: Supreme Intelligence, I am endlessly awed by Ayurveda and the absolute miracles I have seen it work on people, in people, for people.
HAS IT HELPED YOU WITH ANYTHING MAJOR?
When I was first introduced to Ayurveda, I was already on a self-healing path. Ayurveda was exactly what I was seeking to both heal and to more deeply understand myself, retrieve parts of myself and learn how to truly care for myself. There is no part of my life that it hasn’t helped with. For example, it has given me a new way of understanding my children and how best to support, nourish and ‘see’ them.
IS AYURVEDA PART OF YOUR EVERYDAY LIFE OR JUST FOR YOUR MEDICINE CABINET OR FALL-BACK ROUTINE?
It is. I keep it very, very simple. People always ask, what herbs do you take? Well, I don’t unless it is indicated to do so. My agni is strong and balanced. Once I understood that principle from the early days, and once I healed from other afflictions, it’s about the daily routines. Diet and lifestyle are my medicine. I eat with the sun, sleep with the moon. I eat at the same time everyday. I eat seasonally and organic only. Farmer’s markets are a girl’s best friend for eating seasonally! Some daily dinacharya and I am pretty solid year after year!
WHAT ARE YOUR TOP 3 AYURVEDIC TIPS THAT HAVE WORKED FOR YOU?
Eat at the same time everyday.
No mid meal snacking.
Eat fresh, home-cooked meals.
WHAT SURPRISED YOU MOST ABOUT AYURVEDA?
When Ayurveda was referred to as “The Mother of all medicine”, I didn’t know it referred to surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics, psychology and all the branches of medicine. They are intricately written about in the ancient texts, including surgical diagrams with anesthesia and a complete understanding of the nervous system and nerve tissue. It is so profoundly and deeply intelligent in ways that will take me many more lifetimes to learn and understand. It is more vast than we can know, there doesn’t seem to be a single condition that we throw at it that it doesn’t have an answer for and that it works!
DID YOU INTEGRATE IT GRADUALLY OR OVERNIGHT FOR ANY PARTICULAR REASON?
I went all in! As much as I could integrate as possible. It was so immediately potent, I wanted more and incorporated every single bit that I learned every single time I met with my teachers and from every single text I read. I mean, why wouldn’t you?
DO YOUR CHILDREN/FAMILY EAT AN AYURVEDIC DIET? AND IF THEY DO, DO THEY KNOW IT’S AYURVEDA OR DO THEY JUST THINK OF IT AS HOME COOKING?
My kids are grown ups now, so I have little control over their choices. But they were raised in a yogi/Ayurvedic home so they know how to care for themselves and how best to cook for themselves and if they, or their friends, need some support they know who to call!
WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE AYURVEDIC RECIPE OR GO-TO INGREDIENT?
Well, this becomes a little more complicated, right? Because, it begs another question: what is or isn’t Ayurvedic??? All food is Ayurvedic depending on who’s eating it and when. But for me personally, it comes back to seasonal eating. I LOVE fruit and hibiscus tea in the summer. In the fall and winter, I live on soups and roasted veggies with rice. And all other times, beets! I can’t/won’t live without ghee and a beautiful, simple dal served with rice and ghee is a go to. I really do keep it simple. Food is not daily entertainment.The more your food heals you, the more you develop a different relationship with it, a reverence.
HOW DOES AYURVEDA FIT INTO YOUR DAY-TO-DAY ROUTINES?
It doesn’t ‘fit into my daily routines’. It IS my daily routine. I wake up at the same time everyday. Exercise and oil and scrape and brush at the same time. Eat at the same time. Go to sleep at the same time. Easy peasy.
WHAT DO YOU WISH WAS EASIER IN OUR SOCIETY TO MAKE AN AYURVEDIC LIFESTYLE MORE ACCESSIBLE?
There really is nothing about the Ayurvedic lifestyle that isn’t accessible. Start with baby steps. Pick ONE thing that you can and will commit to doing daily. Then add another item on the list and so forth. Habits are our lives. More and more, there are practitioners to help guide you to incorporate more Ayurveda into your life. I do think we need better educated practitioners though to help people understand that Ayurveda can help you no matter where you are in your life. I think making Ayurveda a more serious healthcare option and less of a new-age ‘woowoo’ pseudoscience would really help to make it a viable and accessible choice for people seeking true health and healing.
Also, and this one too is controversial, people’s relationship with alcohol makes Ayurveda less accessible. It’s a societal issue that I wish we talked about more.
DO PEOPLE AROUND YOU/IN YOUR CIRCLE OF FRIENDS KNOW ABOUT AYURVEDA?
Mostly, yes. But, I have been doing this for so long that most people around me know about Ayurveda. They know that I practice Ayurveda and how passionate I am about it.
WHAT’S THE ONE THING YOU WOULD ENCOURAGE EVERYONE TO TRY OR YOU THINK WOULD BENEFIT THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE’S HEALTH FOR THE BETTER?
Ayurvedic therapies! We need more practitioners practicing Ayurvedic therapies. I have never had anyone get on my table for a Bliss Therapy or Rejuvenation treatment package or a Panchakarma that wasn’t deeply changed. Everyone, and I mean everyone, needs a Bliss Therapy - a 4-hand abhyanga, shirodhara, swedhana. Get them on the table for a regular Bliss Therapy and the world would be a different place!!