Scheduling and Paperwork: As soon as we schedule your 2-hour Initial Consultation and 75-minute Report of Findings, I will send you some comprehensive paperwork, asking about medical history, goals, long term digestive, psychological, and physical tendencies, reproductive tendencies, daily diet, daily habits, sleep, and any and all health challenges going on right now.
At the 2-hour Initial Consultation, we go through all of your paperwork in detail and do a physical examination. I'll be asking lots of questions to get more details about and to clarify your symptoms, patterns, and history.
If we're meeting in person, I'll take some photos of your face, hands, body, and tongue. With your permission, I'll feel the texture of the skin on your forearm and the texture of your hair; take your blood pressure, perform an Ayurvedic pulse reading, and perform an Ayurvedic abdominal exam. If you prefer not to be touched, we can skip any procedures with which you are not 100% comfortable.
If we're meeting virtually, I'll ask you to send me photos of your face, hands, body, and tongue.
I will give you a book to read and short videos to watch over the course of the week, between the 2-hour Initial Consult and the 75-minute Report of Findings, so you have a basic understanding of Ayurvedic principles before we meet again. This will ensure we're "speaking the same language," when I present my findings to you.
Between our 2-hour Initial Consult and our 75-minute Report of Findings meeting, I spend 4-6 hours or more over the course of the week, researching your conditions, symptoms, and any diagnoses, analyzing your answers to paperwork, analyzing your physical structure, researching herbs, checking any prescription drug interactions which you may be taking, and putting together your "Ayurvedic Assessment Summary."
At the 75-minute Report of Findings, we will review your Ayurvedic Assessment Summary. This will include your prakruti, or doshic assessment--the unique percentage of kapha, pitta, and vata doshas with which you were conceived. This will also include your vikruti, or the dosha(s) that is/are out of balance right now. I'll also list all the features and attributes that contribute to each of the doshas in your prakruti and vikruti.
Then, we'll talk about the herbal formulations I have designed for you to allow your body to bring you back to balance. I'll also give you the first, 2-3 diet and lifestyle recommendations you'll work on until we meet again. Finally, I'll give you an overview of the 6-12 month plan that we will work on implementing very gradually over that time period together through regular, Ayurvedic Health Counseling session. You can also choose to work on these things independently, if you are very self-motivated or don't need the accountability or, similarly, if you'd like just like to check in with me when you need me.
If you'd like to continue to work together after the Report of Findings, the Ayurvedic healing process can take 6-12 months.
The Ayurvedic healing process depends upon 3 things: 1. your nature (prakruti), how committed you are to changing gradually, how stressful your life is, in what kind of environment you live, etc., 2. the nature of your imbalance(s) (vikruti), how long they've been going on, how serious your health challenges are, whether or not you have multiple challenges, etc.; 3. the nature of the medicine with which we are working, which is part of my job in formulating recommendations and products tailored just for you.
The purpose of the whole process is to allow your body to heal naturally and at its own pace; the healing comes from you, and I'm just here to guide you and hold space for you.
For many, this whole process gives them the courage and motivation to make pretty amazing life shifts in the areas of career, relationship, and even parenting. While patients come to work on digestion or medical diagnoses, they often leave with profound change that they never knew they had the potential to create for themselves. It can be an incredibly healing and rewarding process for both practitioner and patient.
I recommend working together weekly at first, then gradually moving toward bi-weekly, monthly, and then, once your imbalances have healed, seasonally to check in with herbs, diet, and daily habits or whenever you just need a "tune-up."
Meghan Hays Ayurveda is based in Salt Lake City; she offers Ayurveda Consultations in Salt Lake City and anywhere in the world through Zoom, Skype, and FaceTime.