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Welcome to Sowa Rigpa Ottawa

Discover how the ancient wisdom of Tibetan Medicine (Sowa Rigpa) can help you

What is Sowa Rigpa?

Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan Medicine) is a holistic system of health that looks at the individual as a whole. Through understanding the body-mind connection, one can come much closer to the source of a disturbance and heal the root cause and not just the symptoms. I will work closely with you and understand what care you are receiving, and see what is working and what is not. In so doing, we can look at your health in a very holistic manner where you have time to explore your health and gain insight into what might be happening in your body and mind and how they are related.

I have had clients with a wide range of problems who have had really good results:

Chronic pain, headaches
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), chronic digestive issues
Lack of motivation, mental cloudiness
Depression
Anxiety, panic attacks
Stress and hypertension
Kidney and bladder Issues
Sexual health issues
amongst many others.

Woman hiker enjoy the view on mountain t

Personalized Treatment Plans

Time-tested Healing Methods

Holistic Healthcare

How Does it Work?

Here you can find some background on the Sowa Rigpa philosophy, but more importantly, this is what we can do to support your healing journey:

Sowa Rigpa views the elements as building blocks of the universe and everything within it - including us. When the elements become imbalanced within us, disease arises. Every one’s healthy balance however is different as some people tend to have more fire while others more wind etc. This is completely natural and healthy so it is important not to mistake a natural typological excess for an imbalance. Having said that typological tendency can show where the body’t propensity is to have disease. So someone who has a lot of fire is more susceptible to having fire imbalances.

So the first step is to understand your natural typology. Here is a typology test you can do to get started.

Once you understand your typology, this helps you to understand yourself better and what your pitfalls might be. The typology test will give some hints as to what you might look out for.

After understanding your typology and slow getting a feel for the characteristics of elements, you can slowly understand what an imbalance feels like and whether you have too much of one element. This can even be simply reduced to whether you tend to have a “colder” disease or a “heat” related disease.

Pillars of Healing

Once you understand your typology, as well as if you have imbalances, there are four pillars that support your healing process.

Diet

The first is diet. Every food has certain qualities that are similar to the elements so each food will be supportive of increasing a specific element or pacifying it. Much can be achieved simply by being more conscious of your diet. Raw foods, fruits and vegetables in general (there are many exceptions) tend to have cooler properties and are good for heat related imbalances, while spicy, well cooked foods are generally warmer and are good to address cold related issues. Excessive wind can be pacified with nutrient rich foods. This of course is a very broad summary and it is important to understand this in more detail in order to have the best diet for yourself.

Lifestyle

As with diet, much can be achieved simply by changing your lifestyle to address imbalances. Excessive wind manifests in a very noisy mind and a stiff body. It is important here to address this through activities that relax you and ground you. Excessive fire can easily turn into anger, so calming activities along with cooling activities are very important. Something as simple as a cold shower, gentle exercise, or sauna can be very effective to address excessive fire. Excessive earth/water manifests as too much cold and this can result in digestive issues, sluggishness and lack of motivation. It is important here to connect with your fire through activities that motivate you or engage in vigorous exercise.

Herbs

If an imbalance cannot be corrected by diet and lifestyle alone, herbs are an effective way to add a stronger kick to support the body find its balance. The Tibetans have been studying herbs for thousands of years and recording very meticulously each herb and herb combination's efficacy. This herbology has not been studied by western medicine and therefore cannot be used as replacement to western medical support, but the people I have worked with have had positive results experimenting with herbs and seeing what works for them.

External Therapies

There are a wide range of external therapies that that can be used that help the body regain its elemental balance. A detailed list of external therapies can be found on the Treatments page.

What to expect from a treatment

One can achieve significant improvement through relfection and adapting one’s diet and lifestyle. If you feel you would like a consultation along with additional treatments or external therapies, please feel free to book here. A session typically involves a thorough discussion of what ails you and then I will use various diagnostic tools to explore further what might be causing the disturbance. After that we continue the session with an actual treatment. A list of treatments can be found here.