KATE SMITH JAMISON
“It was clear to me that in order to practise and teach the yoga and its related lifestyle practices that were right for me and my students, I needed to have a better understanding of yoga’s sister science of Ayurveda that offered powerful insights into our individual constitutions. As I adopted its practices, Ayurveda’s intuitive principles had such an impact on my life that I couldn’t unlearn what I had experienced firsthand, and decided I wanted to share this with others.”
Ayurvedic counsellor, therapist and yoga teacher Kate Smith Jamison helps you to live in harmony with who you are and to navigate life change with grace and wisdom.
Kate believes and has experienced that yoga and Ayurveda can help you connect with the wisdom of nature around you and within you and can help you feel more inner empowerment, less reliance on external factors and more in tune with the rhythm of your life.
Kate specialises in helping support your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health particularly in navigating major life change from career and fertility journeys, to the tenderness and challenges in the changing nature of your relationships with the people in your life, including — and most importantly — the relationship you have with yourself.
Kate draws upon her studies, practices and personal life experience to help serve you. In 2014, she left a fun but intense 14-year career at Goldman Sachs to create The Yoga & Ayurveda Clinic. She now offers the very lifestyle practices that supported her through this and other life change and which continue to be her guiding lights in raising her three young boys with her husband Robert.
Kate studied for her Ayurveda diplomas with Dr. Deepa Apte at Ayurveda Pura Academy in London. She has also studied with Dr. Vasant Lad and is currently in the middle of a Vedic Counselling course with Dr. David Frawley. Kate has practised yoga for over 20 years — her yoga teacher training studies began with Mark Whitwell in 2009 and continued in the Krishnamacharya vinyasa krama yoga lineage with Steve Brandon and his teacher Srivatsa Ramaswami. Kate is also a Prana Flow vinyasa teacher, has been studying with its founder Shiva Rea since 2015, and is hosting Shiva in Ireland again in 2022.
Follow Kate:
Website: The Yoga & Ayurveda Clinic
Instagram: @katesmithjamison
“As a society we first need to relearn our inherent connection to nature.”
What does Ayurveda mean to you?
It means living in rhythm with nature by knowing how the seasons, planets and my surroundings affect my individual physical, mental, emotional and spiritual constitution.
When did you discover it? How long have you been practising it?
I discovered Ayurveda about ten years ago during a yoga teacher training and it not only lit up my yoga practice and how I would teach, but also soon completely changed how I lived and thought about pretty much every aspect of my life. I officially started offering Ayurvedic consultations and therapies to my students and clients in 2015 when I started The Yoga & Ayurveda Clinic.
What drew you to Ayurveda?
First, it was clear to me that in order to practise and teach the yoga and its related lifestyle practices that were right for me and my students, I needed to have a better understanding of yoga’s sister science of Ayurveda that offered powerful insights into our individual constitutions. As I adopted its practices, Ayurveda’s intuitive principles had such an impact on my life that I couldn’t unlearn what I had experienced firsthand, and decided I wanted to share this with others. So from 2012 to 2014 I completed two diplomas with Ayurveda Pura Academy as a diet and lifestyle practitioner and Ayurvedic therapist.
Has it helped you with anything major?
Yes, Ayurveda — and yoga — were I believe the reason why I managed to stay the course in my then fun, well-paid, but very intense job working in commodities at Goldman Sachs. Ultimately Ayurveda and yoga — along with my young son — became the reason as well as the support for when I chose to leave that life in 2014 and return to my roots in Belfast to start The Yoga & Ayurveda Clinic. At the time I was a single mum with my first child and deciding to leave this high-paid job in London and move back home to share my passion and skills was a huge change on almost all levels. Ayurveda and yoga were my constants and guiding lights in navigating this major life change. More recently, following Ayurveda’s wisdom and maintaining my yoga practices kept me steady when I lost my father just 36 hours after the birth of my third little boy.
I’d say the most valuable life navigation skill I’ve learned through Ayurveda is honouring and respecting who you are — YOUR constitution — and being dedicated to keeping it in balance so you can stay in balance with the world around you.
I’m a natural fiery, Pitta-dominant person, and through Ayurveda I learned how to better keep my cool and not burn myself out by respecting my natural tendencies. Ayurveda and its application of yoga have also helped me to unlearn some conditioning of perfectionism as well as “unhone” the skills I learned during 14 years in a career where excess Pitta was fair game, and fast responses and quick thinking were a prerequisite.
By following Ayurveda’s simple but powerful mantra of “like begets like and opposites balance” I’ve learned when I am feeling the excesses of fire/Pitta Dosha and to respect the need to invite in the balancing elements of earth, water and space to slow down, cool off and sometimes walk away.
Is Ayurveda part of your everyday life or just for your medicine cabinet or fall-back routine?
Ayurveda is part of my everyday life and is also in our family medicine cabinet (via foods, herbs and daily rhythm) especially in the autumn and winter months for building and supporting immunity, and pacifying excess Vata that can leave us all feeling depleted and ungrounded if left unchecked.
What are your top 3 Ayurvedic tips that have worked for you?
Self-massage with warm oil before I get in the shower, especially in times of change and during autumn and early winter. Not only does it nourish your skin as your first line of defence, but it’s also a way to feel more grounded and give yourself some love. I’ve always loved the Sanskrit word “snehana” for oil massage, which also means to give love.
Drinking a pint of warm water and tongue-scraping first thing — these two simple actions respectively stimulate peristalsis and your digestion and allow you to check in on two of Ayurveda’s most important indicators of health, namely the state of your digestive/inner fire (Agni) and any signs of toxins (Ama) in the body that can show up on your tongue, in poop, and in how rested you feel after your night’s sleep.
Mantra, Pranayama/breathwork and movement meditation to first check in on my feeling state each day to better know what is going to keep me in balance. Depending on the day, season, time of my own cycle and how I feel I choose mantra and movement meditation accordingly, which usually involves a particular Sadhana/dedication towards practical and/or spiritual aims. I love all aspects of my yoga practice, but mantra has over the years become probably the most potent both on and off the mat. In one of the key ancient Ayurvedic texts, the Caraka Samhita, it is stated, “Mantra is the main and most direct Ayurvedic tool for healing the mind, from its deepest layers to its surface actions.” (sutrasthana XI.54 - translation from “Ayurveda and the Mind” by David Frawley). The more I practise Mantra yoga, the more I agree with this statement.
What surprised you most about Ayurveda?
How its wisdom has endured. Really when you study Ayurveda the first thing that strikes you is just how many of its core principles we already know, which then leads you to realise that as Ayurveda is nature, so too are we. I suppose the other surprising thing is how and why its wisdom has been suppressed, even though nowadays Ayurvedic wisdom shows up time and again in the likes of integrative medicine and modern nutrition, particularly the rise of emphasis on our gut health. I suspect that along with other ancient wisdom traditions that connect us to the Earth’s rhythms and empower us to take control of our health through our lifestyle choices, those more interested in making money from our chronic illnesses have been involved in attaching words like “pseudoscience” to Ayurveda. A term that always makes me chuckle a little as Ayurveda — such that it appears in the Vedas (the most ancient written texts on the philosophy of humanity….) — predates the modern definition of science to which “pseudoscience” refers. Yet, as they say “the proof is in the pudding” and Ayurveda’s practices endure in helping us live longer lives more wisely and in good health.
Did you integrate it gradually or overnight for any particular reason?
I probably gradually integrated Ayurveda into my life during the yoga teacher training that first brought it to my awareness and in my yoga practice. I remember I also had some digestive things going on and made some changes based on Ayurvedic principles like not combining fruit and dairy (no more yoghurt and blueberries for breakfast!) and also taking Triphala (Ayurveda’s cornerstone digestive herb), which combined made a big difference almost immediately.
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?
I would say most of all as a family we’re dedicated to Ayurveda’s food principles of eating at the right time and consuming warm, fresh, cooked, unprocessed and where possible locally grown foods.
So for example we don’t do refined sugar as “treats” unless it’s a special occasion or a gift, and we don’t eat late at night, aiming to have our last food by 6:30 p.m. at the latest, so big and little people’s digestions get a good rest and reset overnight.
Likewise, we try and observe the Ayurvedic no-nos like not drinking fizzy, cold drinks especially at night (unless they are alcoholic — which is rare!) as well as some of what often get termed “faulty food combinations” like fruit and dairy.
My two school-age boys also always have warm flasks of home-prepared food for lunch. That was something I’ve been very passionate about from day one as Ayurveda recommends we eat our largest meal between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., plus the kids have pretty long and busy days.
In terms of specific Ayurvedic foods, my kids love Indian food and we eat a LOT of home made dal with the seasonal Vata/Pitta/Kapha-balancing spices and accompanying seasonal vegetables. But you know we also love a Friday night pizza too (especially knowing how to balance its effects through Ayurveda the next day…)!
My husband is a yoga practitioner and embraces an Ayurvedic food and lifestyle rhythm (we met again after 25 years when he came to me for an Ayurvedic consultation….). The kids know Ayurveda is part of our lives although they’re maybe not aware of all the roots of why, how and what we eat but I will teach them more on the specifics of those as they get a little older. My hope is that our food rhythm and recipes become second nature to them — which I believe it can be naturally for all of us when we listen to our bodies.
In fact, I’ve always found it interesting that when nourished in an Ayurvedic way — both what and when they eat — kids fall into such a natural rhythm and for example don’t want to eat a big meal late in the evening, something that I regularly experience through my clients as one of the aspects of modern culture that can create real challenges to good digestion and sleep.
The most loved and regular touch of Ayurveda in my kids’ lives though is definitely their daily spoonful of Chyawanprash — the immune system-boosting Ayurvedic jam — which they’ve been having every morning since they were very little, especially in the autumn and winter months.
What is your favourite Ayurvedic recipe or go-to ingredient?
My favourite Ayurvedic recipe for easily made and guaranteed family nourishment that everyone (including the baby!) loves is probably a deliciously spiced Tridoshic/seasonal dahl, with our favourite steamed or roasted vegetables like squash, sweet potato, carrots and or spinach. To me it is quite simply Ayurvedic medicine in a bowl!
Because we live in a part of the world that tends towards excess Kapha weather (heavy and rather damp Northern Ireland), this family dahl recipe – and indeed a lot what we eat especially in the morning – will include grated fresh ginger to keep digestion fired and eyes and mind bright! And I can’t not mention ghee. It’s an all-round cooking staple, digestion and toxin caretaker and the key ingredient in my favourite Ayurvedic eye treatment!
How does Ayurveda fit into your day-to-day routines?
Ayurveda doesn’t really fit into my routine. After a while my life has become guided by or fitted around Ayurveda and what it teaches us about following the cues of nature around us and within us. In time it became instinctual how Ayurveda informed my choices from what to eat, when to sleep and what activities are going to be most balancing. Of course I live in a house with three young boys and my husband, so the balancing act is always pretty dynamic!
Ayurveda, and its sister science of yoga — and increasingly for me now also Jyotish — (Vedic/Indian/Eastern Astrology) are weaved throughout my day and touch most of what I do, from what or when to eat, how to move, how to evolve my livelihood/purpose and how to navigate householder life and nourish the relationships in that life, with myself and others. I don’t always get it right, but I know I can trust these tried, tested and faithful guides that have offered me some of the greatest wisdom and support in my life.
What do you wish was easier in our society to make an Ayurvedic lifestyle more accessible?
Oh, that’s a great question with some tough answers. I feel one of the greatest barriers to the accessibility of Ayurveda’s principles is that we need huge change — actually a revolution of sorts — in how we interact with the food and pharma industry. There’s an epidemic — you might even say a pandemic — of addiction to processed non-food and sugar served up by the food industry to make money, which is destroying our health.
The pharma industry has swooped in with their myriad drugs — often with many side effects — for the symptoms caused by this food and other detrimental lifestyle factors. Sadly as a result we have become conditioned to look for health outside of ourselves and have lost or given away the responsibility for our own wellbeing.
Right now it’s pretty clear that neither of these industries care about our health, and their grip needs to be loosened. Instead of peddling drug solutions for every ill, the medical establishment could — and in my opinion should — start to more systematically recommend lifestyle-oriented remedies for chronic conditions (alongside medication if it is beneficial/absolutely necessary) and take greater notice of what people are putting in to their bodies and calling it food.
Further to this, the food industry and supermarkets in my opinion need to be more heavily monitored to curb foods including processed and ingredients that cause ill health (refined sugar as the number one culprit), as well as the practice of both the placement and sale of addictive, unhealthy products in their stores. I see so many people who want to be healthy, but lifestyle and addiction to certain foods can be a huge barrier.
I feel there is also a great opportunity right now when food prices are soaring to better educate ourselves in growing our own food. To not only teach our kids about nutrition, but also the skills to create local food security. By doing so, we can create a landscape where we — and future generations — can get closer to nature and feel that direct connection to the Earth and the empowerment to take control of their health. That’s where I would start, because it feels like as a society we first need to relearn our inherent connection to nature, as it’s from there that all Ayurvedic lifestyle practices emerge.
Do people around you/in your circle of friends know about Ayurveda?
My close circle of friends and family know about Ayurveda to varying degrees. Quite a few have come to me for Ayurvedic consultations either just for a lifestyle check-in and out of curiosity, or for more specific and varied physical, mental or emotional challenges and life changes which we have navigated together through a gradual Ayurvedic lifestyle approach.
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?
Make your digestive health a priority and do a daily practice that connects you to your body, breath, mind and spirit, a practice that invites a tending to all these aspects of your being and opens your eyes to the wisdom of nature within you and around you.