EVE 'MEHEI' SCHOUKROUN
“When I meet someone new, I end up thinking, ‘mmmh, he is probably a Vata person.’ If my friends complain about a partner, I make sense of their issues the Ayurvedic way. When planning a holiday, I think, ‘Yes, warm and humid to balance this Vata Dosha.’ I can’t help it!”
Eve “Mehei” Schoukroun is an Ayurvedic and sound practitioner, a Zen yoga teacher and a Master Medicine Woman specialising in chronic diseases and women’s ailments.
She studied Ayurveda and Marma therapy in India and at the Ayurvedic Institute UK, and became a gong master and sound therapy teacher. Eve is still a student in Sanskrit, herbalism and plant medicine therapies, which brings her to different parts of the world where ancestral medicines are still practised. She mainly uses Ayurveda, yoga therapy and sound to help heal patients, and organises retreats and workshops to share the ancient medicinal traditions with a wider audience.
Eve is a member of the Association of Ayurvedic Practitioners UK.
Follow Eve:
Web: Taapoa
Instagram: @taapoatribe
Facebook: Taapoa Healing
“[Ayurveda is] so potent, so obvious, so smart, so efficient. Universal, really.”
What does Ayurveda mean to you?
Ayurveda has been a major consciousness shift in my life. It brought me back to nature: to my own and to nature itself. Suddenly, “illness” was no longer something I was unlucky to have “caught” but rather something occurring due to my own ignorance: the food I ate, the way I led my business, my perspective ob success, on life really. It felt like I had been walking blindly the whole time. I’m much more in tune with myself as a whole now.
When I studied in Kerala, my guru one day said to me, “we study Ayurveda and yoga to die sitting, in consciousness.” He meant that only away from illness and with peace of mind can we reach the next stage. I’m in awe of Ayurvedic medicine, its intelligence, its simplicity yet its complexity. It often feels like magic.
When did you discover it? How long have you been practising it? Has it helped you with anything major?
I’ve been practising for over 7 years.
I was a film producer for 19 years. I founded a company with over 25 employees, I was travelling all the time, I was a single mum, dealing with too much. By the end, I was only driven by stress… non-stop. Then, I fell sick with some kind of “auto-immune syndrome” the GP couldn’t help with. I felt so helpless. But life works in mysterious ways, and I looked to alternative medicines: During my first Ayurvedic consultation with Geeta Vara, I had an “a-ha” moment. She healed me when no one could, and it felt as miraculous as It was wonderful. Later, I was diagnosed with Fibroids, would faint in the middle of the road with heavy haemorrhage: They told me I needed surgery. I went back to see Geeta and three months later, I was healed.
What drew you to Ayurveda?
The experiences mentioned above. There was something so intelligent in the science. I had to learn more. I came from a family of doctors and dentists, and my vision of medicine was allopathic only. But my mother always had a holistic perspective on healing her patients: she prescribed diets rather than anti-inflammatory meds often, so I guess I was always open to the Ayurvedic perspective. I read a dozen books and I was hooked. I quit the draining career, the life I had created to date and studied, first to teach myself out of curiosity, and then decided to become a practitioner to help others, like I had been helped myself.
Is Ayurveda part of your everyday life or just for your medicine cabinet or fall-back routine?
It’s now impossible to isolate Ayurveda from any part of my life at this point. I’m not the best Ayurvedic patient, and my diet often needs to be revisited! But I now know how to get back into balance and I surely “think” Ayurveda: I’m surrounded by spices and herbs, I pick what helps digestion. When I meet someone new, I end up thinking, “mmmh, he is probably a Vata person.” If my friends complain about a partner, I make sense of their issues the Ayurvedic way. When planning a holiday I think, “Yes, warm and humid to balance this Vata Dosha.” I can’t help it!
What are your top 3 Ayurvedic tips that have worked for you?
Listen to your body: when it hurts, it’s telling you something. A migraine says too much heat. Taking a painkiller won’t remove the cause of the symptoms: mopping the floor of a bathroom that’s been flooded is only good if you’ve switched off the tap first. Listen to what the body and mind say, there’s a reason for it.
Going back to cooked green veg and rice with simple herbs (ground cumin, fennel seeds and coriander) for a few days when I feel heavy, bloated, tired, or sick and avoiding raw foods helps restore balance.
Oil, oil, oil: oiling up the body every day (or at least 3 to 4 times a week) has been a life saver. Use sesame oil or coconut oil in the summer to counter aging, increase circulation, smooth the skin, regulate body fat and, most of all, take these five meditative minutes of self-care. It’s not a beauty tip even though it contributes to beauty, it’s a recipe for health.
What surprised you most about Ayurveda?
Just yesterday, one of my patients explained, “it’s really weird that you can describe my life, the way I am and how I behave so accurately just by asking me questions on food, lifestyle or poo.” And we owe all this knowledge to Indian practitioners starting thousands of years ago.
I can’t get my head around the accuracy of this science. It’s still so potent, so obvious, so smart, so efficient. Universal, really.
Did you integrate it gradually or overnight for any particular reason?
It spoke to me overnight, and I often see in my patients the same kind of realisation: “wow, this is so me, so obvious, so clear.” But integrating it took more time because it’s very different from the concepts I was raised with. It takes time and understanding.
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?
Nobody really eats an Ayurvedic diet and yet everybody does. I don’t eat meat but the kids still do, so I’ll make sure to add spices for them, which make meat digestible, for example. In our house, lettuce and raw salads have become cooked mung beans, fresh spinach and the condiments that make sense according to the season or issue. I think they know the cooking is Ayurvedic, but I try to make it “standard Western” cooking with a twist, including the 6 tastes!
What is your favourite Ayurvedic recipe or go-to ingredient?
There are too many favourites… I love coconut and coriander dal, dals in general—I can add any veg to them, whatever’s left in my fridge really. My go-to ingredients are: honey, cumin, coriander, coriander seeds, fenugreek, pepper, Himalayan salt, ghee, lime, rice and mung beans. Those are always around.
How does Ayurveda fit into your day-to-day routines?
I have a glass of coriander water or ginger, lime and honey infusion in the morning (depending on the seasons or how I’m feeling). I avoid raw foods, as well. I used to live on salads (my Vata side!), so this has been a big change and I have traded my many daily coffees for just one (with a bit of brown sugar) in the morning, followed by a few herbal teas (also chosen according to needs or season) during the day.
I do tongue scraping and self-oil massage every day. I also use Kumkumadi oil on my face before bed. I make sure to have some type of movement/exercise every day: I go for a walk in the park, in nature, or I practise yoga, even if only for 20 minutes. It’s like meditation, it’s the “every day” that makes the difference, not the length of the practice.
What do you wish was easier in our society to make an Ayurvedic lifestyle more accessible?
To make Ayurveda more accessible, one needs to make more time. It’s a difficult question, because it’s all about changing deep-rooted perspectives.
We’ve been so disconnected from the natural world and our own natural needs, we only rely on anti-inflammatories to numb the symptoms, and rush back to work. I was this person.
Health isn’t a magic pill or a one-size-fit-all. If we were all convinced of that, we would give more value, and therefore more time, to our daily routines and self-care, food and diets—which are the key to anything Ayurveda. But this takes time and if we’re not convinced of the positive effects of our daily routines, we don’t take the time to implement them. A huge turning point would be to incorporate the Ayurvedic principles in the National Health Service, which in turn would educate more people and change a few perspectives. If the mainstream medical body were to recognise the importance and the preventive strength of Ayurvedic principles, I think we would all give more time to true health.
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?
Know your own nature, your unique being, what suits it and what aggravates it. This is true for the body, but it applies to the mind too. If you are conscious of what you’re made of, you can always come back to your own balance.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Health comes with consciousness.