My Story

Bonjour les amis,

My name is Karey Shane. I live in Orem, Utah, after having raised my children in Vermont, Montréal, and New Orleans. I've had a life-long passion for world cultures, languages, and a 15-year passion for Ayurveda. French is my second language, which I spoke with my children as our home language. Since doing this blog about things that bring me so much joy, I haven't felt this alive in years!

Most of us feel our lives are out of balance, but we keep pressing on . . . like me with what looks like a tan in the picture to the left. (It's the same fake tan President Kennedy had due to Addison's disease.)

L'Ayurvédique is my happy effort to share how Ayurvedic routines, recipes, and remedies are bringing balance and healing to my life.

I hope to share how Ayurveda can potentially offer my friends and their families wholeness and healing, if they consistently add Ayurvedic recipes, daily routines, and seasonal rhythms to their life. I'm not an Ayurvedic Wellness Educator {yet}, but I am able to share what I like and what I've learned personally with you.

My deep appreciation for Ayurveda began in the winter of 1998 in rural Vermont, when I read Maya Tiwari's book, Ayurveda, A Life of Balance. It was a deeply stressful time for me, interspersed with the consistent joy and responsibility of nurturing my three young children. I had done pranayama breathing off and on for 15 years after finding a green, cloth bound book on yoga in a used bookstore on during 18 months of voluntary service in Québec.

I began again to do the familiar pranayama breathing exercises in Tiwari's book, along with the dietary principles and recipes that matched my own scrawny, nervous physical Vata constitution (mixed with the curly hair and nurturing qualities of Kapha). The bone-chilling cold that plagued me through the winter went away, I felt calmer, and people kept asking me if I'd been skiing, because my complexion was so healthy and glowing.

Little did I know I would come to a physical stop less than ten years later, in April 2007. Since then, I've been given many diagnoses by medical doctors. I've had countless blood draws, IV's, periods of being unable to speak or open my eyes, and a trip to the emergency room. I've passed out, experienced (or so I'm told) convulsions during an IV, and my blood pressure has been chronically low--dipping to 75 /29.

And now, l'Ayurvédique is my little home-based endeavor. It begins today, February 18, 2013. After experiencing profound relief, strength, and clarity of mind through applying consistent Ayurvedic routines and dietary changes over the last several weeks, I've realized again how profound Ayurveda is. I feel removed from whatever has been plaguing me the last six years.

The rekindling of my passion for Ayurveda as a means of finding balance and healing in my life began in early February 2013, when, in a moment of rare clarity that pierced through my often foggy, confused brain, I found an Ayurvedic doctor named Vladimir Kazinets, in Chicago.  I sent him an email that morning. That night when I felt well enough to get on the computer again, I felt delighted to discover he had written back and wanted to call me. He asked for my phone number.

To my astonishment, Vladimir Kazinets called me the next day, a Sunday, and spent 1/2 hour with me, gently, yet clearly outlining an 8 step protocol for me to follow. He asked many medically-related questions about my T3 and T4 levels, my TSH, and so on.

That night, my son and daughter-in-law called on video chat to tell us that they are expecting their first child. Being giddy with inexpressible joy, and with that loose adrenal trigger one has when in Final Phase Adrenal Insufficiency, I was up all night.

I began the next day, fully expecting to crash from lack of sleep. Yet, profoundly sweet and welcome relief came in the form of strength to make breakfast four days in a row for me and my husband, wake up after nine hours of sleep the next morning, (instead of the usual 12 - 15 hours a night), and feeling no pain. Often, I felt as though I had hundreds of mosquitos biting me constantly, especially before oncoming storms.

Why I didn't use Ayurveda after being mainly home bound over the last six years, I can only attribute to a lack of strength and the need to rely on myself to cook, which wasn't a possibility since I spent most of my time lying down, often too weak to lift my arms above my head for a stretch, or stand up to shower.

Often, I felt so weak, I was unable to make it to the kitchen at all and often went hungry, without letting on how miserable I felt. My husband travels for days at a time nearly every week, and works long hours when home, so truly, I felt as though I was wasting away over the last six years.

However, I kept reading books on Ayurveda, adding them to my library, using Dr. Vasant Lad's book to guide me in preparing simple remedies for coughs, colds, feeling cold, dealing with dry skin, and other day to day annoyances we all deal with.

By adopting an Ayurvedic diet, as well as by following daily routines that allowed my body to return to a state of balance, I'm finally ready to share my 15 year-long passion with Ayurveda, in whatever form it takes. I see myself making lotions and packets of kitchari for family, but maybe this will turn into more than that. As long as I am able to maintain balance in my own life, I'm open to wherever l'Ayurvédique takes me.

I live in Utah, but have not found an Ayurvedic practitioner here who is open and happy to share whatever healing information I've needed in order to heal without charging me hundreds of dollars for a consultation, telling me things I already know. So to Vladimir Kazinets, thank you. And thank you to so many others who have shared your experience and wisdom through your writing.

Karey Shane