“If you are too busy to live a healthy life, or to really love the people you love, then it’s time to slow down.” ~ Mark Ballenger, Christian author

“A mind that is racing over worries about the future or recycling resentments from the past is ill-equipped to handle the challenges of the moment. By slowing down … we will find that we can function well whatever the difficulties.” ~ Eknath Easwaran, translator of the Bhagavad Gita.

“The most effective route to inner peace is in the value of slowing down in our busy lives.” ~ Haemin Sunim, Buddhist teacher and writer

“Be still and know that I am God.” ~ Psalms 46:10, Holy Bible

Yvonne Heitz is a massage therapist of the Ayurvedic tradition who helps people slow down and calm down at her practice at Ishta Massage Therapy. Her office, on the second floor above Finan McDonald Clothing Company, is where she does bodywork based on an individual’s imbalances.

She calls her practice “Ishta” because it means “cherished” in Sanskrit. “In this tradition we love people right where they are and don’t make suggestions that they’re not ready for,” she said.

Everyone is looked at differently in Ayurvedic, she said, because people’s imbalances are different — how the weather affects one person is different from how it impacts another; cold food might affect one person differently than other people; we have different levels of frustration, stress, diet influences, trauma, injuries, and addictions, she said. When she uses a copper shirodhara pot on a tripod, particular herbs are used with sesame oil as the carrier, and it drips on a person’s forehead. This is said to improve sleep problems, anxiety, eye diseases, memory loss, and many other conditions, according to Wikipedia.

People get to feel what it’s like to be calm and amazingly relaxed. “It’s a bliss therapy,” Heitz said. She covers the person’s eyes with pads soaked in rose water during the therapy, and rose water has its own healing qualities, she said.

“Ayurvedic is also the science of anti-aging,” she said, and there are treatments and herbs that not only provide cellular protection, they also have anti-inflammatory and anti-stress properties, she explained.

“It’s like a wood-burning stove,” Heitz said. “You have to have the correct amount of air and wood to burn cleanly. We look for root causes, which are usually in trauma or in the digestion.”

When reminded that Hippocrates said all disease originates in the gut, she said Ayurvedic practitioners recognized this years before Hippocrates. If a person has constipation, loose stools, or any digestive issue such as acid reflux, then we would strengthen that first,” she said, though she would probably recommend a consult with Dr. Suhas G. Kshirsagar, a well-known Ayurvedic doctor who wrote “The Hot Belly.” If one’s imbalances have gone into the tissues, then inflammatory disease may be present. Kshirsagar, she said, would advise ways to burn the toxins to strengthen the digestion and then go through therapies that would ultimately go through 8 tissue layers for cellular healing and cleansing of the lipid structures.

Ayurveda has been an integral part of healthcare in India and Sri Lanka for more than 2,000 years, and its roots go back 5,000 years. It means “knowledge” or “science” of life and the basic tenant of Ayurveda is that health conditions should be treated with holistic, natural therapies tailored to the needs of each individual. In addition to treating the physical body with herbs and oils, Ayurveda focuses on balancing the mind and spirit to achieve inner harmony.

“It’s the sister science to yoga,” she said, adding that the purpose of yoga is to make the body comfortable for meditation, which allows spiritual connections.

Heitz studied Ayurvedic Medicine beginning in 2001, at the California College of Ayurvedic in Nevada City. She has worked with Swami Saradananda, author of books on chakras, yoga, and meditation and other practitioners on a one-to-one basis.

While living in Maui with her husband and four boys, Heitz had many years of practical experience with Ayurvedic medicine. “It is the medicinal practice we use in our family,” she said. They tried to live in California after they moved back from Hawaii, but the pace was detrimental to their welfare in every way. “We had been checking out Idaho for 7-9 years. My husband has a relative in Post Falls,” she said, “so when we came to Sandpoint, the draw was the slower pace, which, she said, “our whole culture fights.”

Heitz also specializes in ortho-bionomy, which helps people with chronic pain and injuries and posture-related problems by using gentle repositioning techniques.

She strives to help people find a state of peace in order for them to have a connection with the Divine. Or they can come in for a regular massage; she has been trained in many different modalities of massage therapy, and she likes to use oils and a lot of steamy towels.

Heitz would steer a person who wants a very deep, painful massage to practitioners who specialize in that type of bodywork. She said Ayurvedic is about working with one’s body intelligence, and if one wants to take a look at their dosha/s to come up with dietary recommendations and how to use particular spices to make you feel better, she is trained in these areas. She likes to help women with hormonal imbalances, and she enjoys working with women who want to start a family, or who have given birth and need some balance work afterward, or with parents who are dealing with the demands of working and parenting.

Primarily, a massage with Heitz comes with a lot of education and knowledge about healing the mind, body, and spirit “to access your true essence of love, beauty, and joy…to shine,” she said, not to mention oils and steamy towels.

For more information, contact Yvonne Elizabeth Heitz at 808-264-6272 or at www.ishtamassage.com