Interview by Carly Milne

Light Miller is a one-woman healing crew. Traveling extensively to teach people about the benefits of aromatherapy, Ayurveda, natural menopause, herbology, and tantra, Miller began in the natural medicine field as a naturopathic doctor until she embraced her Indian roots and followed her mother’s advice to go to school in India. It was there that she got her master’s and fell in love with medicine. Twenty-five years later she works with her husband and conducts panchakarma programs, kayakalpa treatments, and teaches a rasayana program at their home in Florida, which covers advanced techniques in Ayurveda and holistic healing. And that’s when she’s not writing books.

Miller took time out of her busy schedule to chat with LIME.com about the ins and outs of Ayurveda, and why she believes it to be Western society’s answer to the secrets of life.

LIME: What is Ayurveda?
Light Miller: I would say it’s a science, it’s a lifestyle and it’s a way of life. It’s not just medicine, where you take a pill, get well and continue life — it’s about integrating a whole life with harmony and bliss. Ayurveda is known as the medicine of yogis, and is still a medicine of yoga. This is a 5,000 year-old form of medicine. The answers for everyone’s life were written 5,000 years ago, so now it’s time for us to begin to integrate it with stress reduction and use its teachings to learn how to create productivity, how to live happier and fulfilled, and how to allow spirit to work through you. It’s a mind body medicine that encompasses everything we are. Gem therapy, acupuncture, Chinese medicine… all of that came from Ayurveda.

How is it a way of life?
When dealing with self-health care, it’s all about how to keep in balance by doing things like eating the right foods. You’re going to recognize 10 different metabolic types. Like a blood type, everyone has essential foods, herbs and oils that they need for peak performance. Take someone who is busy, for example. There are certain essential oils to keep them calm at work. A Pitta type — type A — is in charge and likes to dominate everything, so you want to give them something to calm them in the office. I have secretaries spraying essential oils when serving tea and coffee so their bosses can do their job in a place of calmness and peace.

How does that work?
Well, the olfactory bowl is connected to our limbic system, which is the most primitive part of brain and represents a lot of who we are — that’s where we hold traumas. So if a controlling person had controlling parents, by smelling the oils, it goes directly into your system and changes your whole being. But that’s just one small aspect.

What are the others?
Yoga, meditation, being on purpose, finding who you are, working with emotions… In Ayurveda we have mantra therapy, physical therapy, and lifestyle dharma to help with such things. Many people get ill because they’re not doing their dharma. You want to be doing jobs that make you happy, but a lot work at what they hate, or sacrifice to do what they hate to do what they want. So looking at your dharma is important in Ayurveda. We look at illness as a big gift. Most people get freaked, but it’s really a possibility because most people don’t make changes until there’s a trauma, so it’s about a lifestyle. You wake up, do yoga, meditation, oil yourself so you go out into the world protected with your aura closed, and your nervous system is protected. So while a lot of it is stress therapy, the main part is cleaning house.

What is a consultation like?
When you have a consultation you learn what to eat, what to do with your life, and then the second visit looks at chronic issues. If you have headaches, why? Where is it coming from? Lineage? Food? Inherited? Every aspect of person is part of the whole person. Are they too nervous? Too stressed? We need to look at the lifestyle and take a look at what we’re doing. If you can’t control your emotions, you can’t be well.

The first thing I do is have you bring in what you’re already taking. I don’t want to change you too quickly right away. I want to make changes, but take you through baby steps to do so. So we look at how you’re living and do pulse reading, which tells me what your body is doing. There are seven levels of the pulse that go all the way into the tissues. According to what I find, I discover your body type, and then we start to work with herbs, rituals and medicines, maybe doing tai chi. I find ways to integrate a peaceful life into yours more than anything. There are ways to calm emotions and ways to deal with job stress. Then you go home with tea or herbal medicine to practice. I make an essential oil for you with medicated oil so that you can self-massage. That’s called abyangha. Let’s say you’re stressed. I’ll create a calming blend for you every day. Essential oils are so powerful that they begin to activate right away.

So I guide them through slowly. Say you’re a big meat eater, but a Pitta doesn’t do very well with beef, so I begin to take baby steps. We’d begin to cut down a little bit and add more fish and chicken. Not everyone is a vegetarian, but we’re here in America. There are more organic foods. Meanwhile, a Vata — air type — needs more grounding and roots. So my goal, once I get balance, is to get them on a seasonal diet.