In the world of holistic health and well-being, few individuals stand out as brightly as Jennifer Kurdyla. As an accomplished Ayurvedic Health Counselor and Yoga Teacher, she has dedicated her life to helping people achieve balance and harmony in both their bodies and minds. But Jennifer’s impact extends far beyond the confines of a yoga mat or a consultation room. She is also the co-author of the groundbreaking book “Root and Nourish,” a work that delves deep into the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda, offering a fresh perspective on how we can nourish our roots to flourish in the modern world. In this article, we will explore Jennifer’s journey, her insights into Ayurveda, and the transformative power of her work, which continues to inspire and heal countless individuals seeking a path to holistic wellness. Mystic Mag embarks on a journey through the world of Ayurveda and holistic health with Jennifer Kurdyla, a true luminary in the field.
Your book, “Root & Nourish,” focuses on women’s wellness through herbal cooking. Can you share a personal experience or transformation that inspired you to co-author this book and dive into this particular aspect of holistic health?
Root & Nourish was born from many different influences. I began developing recipes and studying yoga and Ayurveda around 2013, and in 2019 embraced a new career path in these areas after working in book publishing for several years. Along the way, I had met my coauthor, Abbey Rodriguez, whose own food blog I’d hoped she might turn into a cookbook I could edit and publish. When I began working as a freelancer, I stayed in touch with Abbey, who had separately started studying Western herbalism as part of her own healing journey. We started talking about our respective studies and how we’d heard so many similar stories among our friends, families, and clients—women who, like us, had been caught up in the siloed departments of Western medicine without any attempts to make connections between our various health imbalances. It felt like a service and responsibility to share our learnings with other women, and we combined our passions for food and self-care into the book.
Ayurveda emphasizes the importance of balancing one’s doshas. How do you approach individualized wellness plans for women, considering their unique constitutions and life stages?
The concept of dosha goes beyond the “quizzes” one often sees online these days—though that can be a useful way to start understanding your own constitution. What can be confusing is the fact that everyone has all three doshas in their system—vata, pitta, and kapha—and so reading the different descriptions, it’s easy to think, “I relate to all of them!” Working with an Ayurvedic practitioner, we can go into more details about long-term tendencies and imbalances to distinguish between one’s prakriti (constitution) and vikriti (imbalance). For example, if someone is a pitta or kapha prakriti, but experienced trauma or an intense illness at a young age, they might be a vata vikriti—but vata is not their constitution. Similarly, if a woman is pregnant, she will have more pitta in her system overall because of the intensity of hormones that are maintaining the pregnancy and growing her baby. I usually start by talking with clients about their health history and current daily routine and diet. To understand their prakriti, I like to ask: When did you feel your best—in body, mind, and spirit? What did your life look like then? From there, we can understand the qualities that feel most innate to them, and what kind of external conditions help to support their natural state of balance.
In the realm of yoga and Ayurveda, how do you see the mind-body connection playing a crucial role in women’s overall well-being? Could you provide an example of how yoga and Ayurvedic practices have made a significant difference in a woman’s life?
The mind is everything! Traditionally, yoga is a practice of working with the mind—as the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali define yoga, Yogaś-citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ: Yoga is the direction of the fluctuations of the mind. Though our modern postural practice of yoga is more directed toward physicality—flexibility and strength—the asanas were intended to prepare the body for meditation, and to allow for smooth and rhythmic circulation of prana, or life force energy, which links to Ayurveda. Ayurveda is a more straightforward medical science, but because it is a holistic system it acknowledges the role of mental imbalances on the state of the body; if prana cannot circulate because of a mental or physical imbalance, our health suffers. For example, someone with anxiety might experience sleep, digestive, and/or reproductive imbalances—and they might feel some relief with physical support, but until the stress is gone (what we call the “root cause”) the physical ailments will persist. I have worked with many women on improving their overall well-being through the mind-body connection.
One client came to me with many signs of vata imbalance, from indigestion to difficulty concentrating to sensory overload. Together, we looked at how the intense responsibility she had as a teenager, moving to a new country away from her family, and not having adequate support after having her child all depleted her nervous system. By establishing a slower and more consistent daily routine for her, as well as incorporating other practices like restorative yoga, pranayama, regular meals, and herbs that rejuvenate the mind, she’s been able to restore her energy for work and family life.
What type of services do you offer?
I mostly work with clients one-on-one, as this more personalized approach can help individuals get the most effective care for their imbalances; these sessions include guidance on diet, lifestyle, and herbs, as well as private yoga sessions if that is relevant and of interest. As more general introductions to Ayurveda, I also offer community seasonal resets and several on-demand online programs. Where I live in Brooklyn, I also teach group yoga classes at various studios. My website had both informative articles and dozens of recipes, and of course you can learn more in Root & Nourish.
Ayurveda recognizes the seasons’ impact on health. Could you discuss how women’s wellness practices should adapt to the changing seasons, and perhaps share a favorite seasonal recipe or ritual?
Each of the seasons has a prevailing dosha—vata in fall/winter, kapha in spring, and pitta in summer—which determines what qualities are needed in our food and activities in order to create balance in the system. Since we are “microcosms of the macrocosm,” the different proportions of doshas and elements in the environment are also reflected in our systems. As such, during vata season, we might feel more vata qualities, even if vata is not our dominant constitution.
Right now, fall is around the corner, and the volatility of the weather and energy of change and business—especially in back-to-school season—are all trademark signs of vata. One of my favorite ways to support this dosha is the practice of abhyanga, or self-massage with oil. The grounding, warming, and unctuous nature of oil is the perfect antidote to vata’s erratic, light, and dry qualities. You can incorporate abhyanga into your daily morning routine if you feel an excess of vata, or start with oiling your feet at night before bed if you want to ease your wan in.
How do you encourage women to embrace the spiritual and emotional aspects of these traditions in their wellness journey, and what benefits can they expect from doing so?
Our culture does not have very strong support when it comes to spiritual and emotional health, which has shifted a bit since COVID but still needs a good amount of work. Everyone has a different relationship to these areas of their life, and if someone has a spiritual practice or tradition I encourage them to continue on that path and seek guidance and reassurance however feels familiar to them. If someone does not already have a spiritual practice, the best way to experience it is by spending time in nature. There, we are able to connect to the “macrocosm” of our being—to experience the elements and doshas on a grander scale, and to feel both humble and integrated into the system at large. To me, that is the essence of spirituality, whether you call it God or nothing at all.
This kind of work can be truly transformational, even more so than working with food or herbs, since it establishes our individual lives in the vast and unknowable field of the universe. It helps us release our sense of control and ego, which can get in the way of our own healing. By accepting that we are part of something greater, our motives and intentions for health are not only about our own well-being; they become an act of service, of helping create harmony in the environment. As my teacher likes to say, our main purpose in life is to ensure sukha, or good space, for all living beings. This includes good space within ourselves—consuming wholesome foods, taking care of ourselves, abiding by our values—but also allowing the humans and non-humans around us to go about their dharma with integrity and the resources they need to do so. With this perspective, we can truly embody the goal of Ayurveda—longevity—because the effects of our life will extend far beyond our physical body’s limited lifespan. Every time we engender sukha through our choices and actions, we widen the ripples of health and peace circulating in our universe.
