Apparently, I’m so Kapha that I make my own damn rocks.
Literal rocks. In my kidneys.
This kidney stone has had me curled up on the floor, throwing up, missing work, and questioning everything from my life path to whether I can trust my body again. And honestly? It’s been a bit of a spiritual trip.
Kapha dosha, the earth and water energies are known for their density, their stickiness, their stability. Too much Kapha and you get stagnation, buildup, heaviness. So of course my imbalance decided to get poetic and start forming a little mineral shrine in my internal water system. Bless it.
Now, we all have a bit of all three doshas in us. Vata (air/space), Pitta (fire/water), and Kapha (earth/water). But when I did my most THOUROUGH Ayurvedic self-assessment and saw the breakdown, something like 15% Vata, 15% Pitta, and a whopping 60% Kapha, I couldn’t help but laugh. Like, oh okay. I am mud in a human suit.
I used to wonder why I always felt so tired, so swollen, so misunderstood. Why my motivation seemed to disappear some days and I’d be labeled as flaky or unreliable. Turns out I’ve been carrying around a chronic illness (PKD, polycystic kidney disease) that I didn’t even know I had.
I don’t want pity. I don’t want “poor you.” What I want is to tell the truth, which is to say that sometimes the people you think are lazy or unmotivated are actually fighting a fucking war inside their body. And they might not even know it yet.
Ayurveda; the ancient system that I’d already been studying — started to make so much more sense once this diagnosis landed. Kapha imbalance? Yep. Poor agni (digestive fire)? Definitely. Water retention? Oh, baby. It’s all there. But instead of panicking, I started looking at this through the Ayurvedic lens and realized:
This isn’t punishment. It’s information.
Now I’m eating lighter, adjusting when and how I rest, moving my body in ways that don’t deplete me, and listening to my damn gut literally and energetically. It still wants mac and cheese and still gets it occasionally. I’m working with herbs, oils, and food that help move the excess water and soften the stagnation. It’s not magic. It’s medicine. Ancient, rooted, deeply intuitive medicine.
Ayurveda isn’t dogmatic. It’s not a trendy wellness gimmick. It’s literally life itself . The study of how we’re built, what throws us off balance, and how to come back home to ourselves. It can feel confusing at first, but once it clicks… oh, it clicks. And I could talk about it forever (and sometimes do, fair warning).
And yeah, I’m a little scared about surgery. Anyone would be. But my spiritual practice, mantra, meditation, breathwork, surrender has become the rope I’m holding onto in this wild river. Even the understanding that I’d have to surrender some of my favorite asanas, at least for a while. I’m not trying to pretend I’m above it all. I’m just saying I’ve got tools that are helping me paddle through it.
If you’re reading this and you’ve ever felt like your body is betraying you, or like people just don’t get how heavy your daily life can feel, know that I see you. I am you. And I promise, there’s a way to alchemize even the stuck, heavy, gritty stuff into wisdom.
Sometimes the body’s got to scream before we listen.
Sometimes Kapha makes you a rock collector whether you like it or not.
And sometimes your pain becomes your practice.