Two weeks I ago I sprained and hairline-fractured my ankle…and tore my tendon. I was running barefoot on ocean rocks in the rain because I was listless. “I know, I’ll do something slightly off-kilter, so I can feel a bit more alive.” In addition to demolishing my ankle I also ran into three nude men. Another story.

Jo. Me. Bung ankle.

So. I can’t walk for 6 weeks, run for 3 months. It’s a sentence. It’s a sign.

But this has helped. A comfrey poultice. I researched online the various benefits. Much has been said about it’s ability to heal sprains and even fractures. I looked at the different techniques and decided to get witchy with it myself.

Frankly, I’ve come up with the Creme de la Creme of Healing, Soothing Poulticessssss.

Check this shit out…

1. Cut up comfrey leaves – about six – and stick-blend in a plastic container(which means you don’t get your blender machine dirty) with some water…enough to make it soupy.

2. clever trick #1: Most recipes say to add a good handful of flour to get it paste-like. Good. But I used chia bran and psyllium husk because it got it SUPER pasty. Like a rubber. You need this so you can use the poultice like a goob and it won’t run everwhere.

Yesterday, in an interview for Yoga Journal, I was asked what lifestyle techniques I wholeheartedly swear by. I’ve been saving this trick up for a while to share…it’s certainly one of the main approaches I live by for maximum wellness and solid-to-goodness ground-ed-ness.

I tame my vata.

But I have a theory. I believe untamed vata is the reason why people in our culture are feeling more and more unsettled and angsty, and getting weirdly unwell as a result. I make a big call, but read on.

Our “vata” is out of balance. Contemporary life turns us into vata types. But it also aggravates vata energy. We’re set up to #epicfail!

Have no idea what I’m talking about?

OK, I’ll break this whole vata thing down

* Vata is an Ayurvedic term.

* Ayurvedic healing, IMO, is the most grounded approach I’ve encountered. Yoga as we know it today – all of it – and meditation and a lot of the dietary theory I espouse comes from this tradition which is more than 5000 years old (some say 10,000). It started in India. Buddhism stemmed from it 3000 years ago.

* If you want to learn more, Deepak Chopra’s book Perfect Health is a good start.

* Anyway. According to Ayurvedic thinking, we’re all made up of 3 doshas – vata, pitta and kapha. This is less woo-woo than it sounds. Promise. It’s simply a way to categorise body/personality types that exist for a multitude of evolutionary reasons. We all possess all three doshas, but tend to have one that dominates. Our dominant dosha can get out of balance, which causes us different digestion/weight, health and emotional issues.

Make sense?

So, generally…

Vata types have: light, flexible bodies and big, protruding teeth; small, recessed, dry eyes;  irregular appetite and thirst; often experience digestive and malabsorption problems; easily excited;

This is a nice bit of Tao reflection… especially for those of us who are very good at doing, but not at stopping.

Fill your bowl to the brim

and it will spill.

Keep sharpening your knife

and it will blunt.

Chase after money and security

and your heart will never unclench.

Care about people’s approval

and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.

The only path to serenity.

Lao Tsu

The trick, of course, is to know when your bowl is comfortably full, to know when you’ve done enough work.

I think you only know that once you step back quietly. In actuality, work is never “done”. There is more we could always do. But we need to realise backing off, releasing control, letting things be for a bit is as essential to creating as doing is.

This is a relief. Honestly.

What can we all do to step back? A walk around the block? Some care of the soul? Some gentle trusting that enough is done? Maybe just do less and see what happens?

I’m sad tonight. I have no desire to hide from it. This touched me.

My mate Dee Coleman has launched a great recipe share site which has some good gluten-free ideas. You should check it out. (Also check out the link below to gluten-free breakfast joints…and add some of your own in the comments. We’ll get a guide going….)

Two things I like about Cook My Way

1.the recipes only call for a couple of ingredients and are listed loosely (in handfuls, splashes)

2.the culture of the site is very cute – Dee invites a few people over to her house every Monday and cooks up a big meal which they eat while brainstorming ideas for the site.

Dee’s website is for everyone to post and share their recipes. Here’s some gluten free ones.

Gluten-free seeded bread

3 cups of gluten-free flour
1 tspn bicarb soda
1 tspn salt
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup poppy seeds
600 mls butter milk
3 tspns honey

Chances are you’ve seen this Stanford address by Steve Jobs. It’s attracted over 3 million views. I was just alerted to a bit in it where he talks about a philosophy he has for life turning out. For how his life turned out.

Photo via Nike

Jobs dropped out of uni after six months, but hung around campus, bummed about, ate Hare Krishna food. But he’d listen in on a calligraphy class…because it looked beautiful and interesting. Which, I think, is classic scanner (as per yesterday’s post) behaviour. He learned about the different fonts – serif and san serif (as per yesterday’s post, I, too, am obsessed by typography, among other things).

And so,

“If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, “ Jobs explained, “the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionately spaced ones. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.”

And this is his philosophy,

“Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

Which could be seen as cheap spiritual-speak. But it’s not. It’s how it works. I often get asked how I got to be editor of Cosmo or host of MasterChef of whatever. I can trace back and connect dots. But at the time, I didn’t see the dots.