Getting to know: Navi Gill
Who is Navdeep Gill? We asked the Ayurvedic practitioner, therapist and educator three questions.
How did you first 'get into' Ayurveda? How did you go from interested to 'I want to learn this'?
It's hard to summarize this in a few sentences but I've spoken about this on many podcast episodes in more detail but Ayurveda was a re-discovery, a remembrance for me rather than something I just started learning one day. I had been seeking the word my whole life but when my Nana Ji suddenly transitioned to the ancestral plane in 2010, in the depths of my grief and in need of deep healing while I was in India I found myself at an Ayurvedic spice farm in Kerala and there I found the word for the healing and medicine I had longed for my entire life. After returning to Canada I spent the next few months frantically looking for a place to learn and there wasn't anywhere with an in-depth and authentic lineage close to me but I found a teacher who studied with Dr Vasant Lad and spent the summer learning under her guidance. From there every year I added more training to my tool kit and eventually became certified in Yoga, Marma Chikitsa, Ayurveda Bodywork, Nadi Pariksha and Ayurveda beauty care. I am forever a student because 1. to be a Sikh is forever a student and 2. Ayurveda is so incredibly vast and deep that it would take decades of practice and learning for me to even feel comfortable saying I know something. It is divine medicine that requires a great deal of reverence to carry and that is how I hold and practice this gift that has been given to me.
Can you talk a little bit about the treatments and practices you offer your clients?
At present, due to CO-VID, I have my online offerings available which is my Ayurwellness consulting, workshops and education. Prior to CO-VID I was also doing Ayurveda bodywork to support my clients with a more holistic care plan for their wellness and produce my own Ayurveda beauty and wellness products. An Ayurwellness Lifestyle plan is designed to address current health and wellness concerns, give insight into an individual's dosha, what daily self-care practices they can do according to their current dosha state, yoga + meditation for their constitution, insight into diet including some recipes and food guide, suggestions on basic herbs and supplements and for those who are menstruating, I also include a menstrual cycle care guide according to Ayurveda. Ayurvedic bodywork is an incredible tool to support with self-care, these therapies are incredibly potent and ancient techniques that help bring balance to a person's constitution and address mental, physical, emotional and spiritual well being. I offer Marma Chikitsa, Abhyanga, Karna Purna, Shirodhara, all the external Basti, Netra Tarpana. Each therapy is prescribed based on the individuals needs and is catered to their unique constitution and ailment by selecting the right oils, herbs, temperature, pressure for them.
People tend to throw a lot of 'wellness buzzwords' around without really knowing the history behind them; can you talk a little about what 'decolonising wellness' really means, and looks like, for you?
Decolonizing everything started to gain popularity on peoples Instagram bios during 2020 but decolonisation work has been built through the longstanding labour of Black and Indigenous educators, activists, artists, healers and community organisers. It is not a temporary buzzword but a commitment to liberation for all and wellness is something that should definitely be accessible, equitable, respected, and afforded to all. For me decolonizing starts with first looking at our internalised oppression and bias then we can begin to look at decolonizing wellness and the world. It starts by divesting from structures and practices that perpetuate the oppression of historically marginalised groups and colonialism. Divesting means in every facet, in the way we live, build community and do business, we have to shift the focus to community-based from individualised. People who come from the lineages and traditions connected to this ancestral medicine, wellness and healing need to be the wisdom carriers and experts in sharing, teaching, and facilitating their medicine. The way we use, practice, grow, sell, buy and distribute any food, herbs, medicine needs to be equitable, the profits cannot take precedence over the people.
Connect with Navi on her website www.navigillwellness.com, on Instagram, or email her at navigillwellness@gmail.com
