On banana treatments and becoming whole
What I lost and gained from this powerful Ayurvedic therapy
* Please note: this is my own person experience of Pulse Diagnosis and Banana Treatment. If you decide you’d like to go ahead and try these treatments, please do your own research before booking and follow your own internal intuition or charm! Ayurveda is a very personalised experience - it needs to feel right for you and results will vary from person to person.
I was about four months into my Vedic Meditation journey in early 2023 when my teacher, Lauren Godfrey, started talking about the Raju’s - a world renowned family of Ayurvedic Vaidyas (doctors) and how they were planning a visit to Aotearoa with an intriguing sounding offering called Banana Treatment - a powerful therapy that cleanses the entire physiology and restores gynaecological health.
Following my surgical menopause experience and related health issues, I’d been researching Ayurveda over the past few years as an additional support to HRT.
I was excited to hear that these Vaidyas, who come from a very long lineage of healthcare practitioners, were heading to our shores and as the Banana Treatment therapy was developed originally to help support women’s health, I was all in.
Post my ‘insta-pause’, I had gone on a real health rollercoaster (Side note: when I look back on this time, it was more Fearfall than rollercoaster!) and was trying desperately to help myself feel better in any way I could. Menopause has a wonderful ability to bring out all the things that haven’t been properly dealt with in your life and placing them squarely on the table, with a huge bright lamp illuminating every dark shadow that you’ve ignored over the years!
While Western medicine is fantastic for the treatment of many things (i.e. I could have died had the hospital not been able to de-torsion my ovaries), it is often a cold and reductive experience that is almost entirely body focused, without any thought at all for how people’s mind might have been processing and expressing the various mental and physical challenges that had played out in their lives over the years.
I couldn’t wait to start exploring Ayurveda and was excited to attend a talk that the Raju’s hosted before I started BT. They discussed that their focus was on preventative measures to ensure perfect health, rather than the reactive and disease-focused Western approach and how setting up good daily habits, aligned with the seasons and cycles of nature, was key. The Vaidyas also talked about how important meditation was for tuning into our own intuition and inner knowing so that we can start to detect what’s right for us at the right time and how food and digestion are medicine, just as much as or possibly even more so than pills and potions, so sourcing nourishment as local and natural as possible is very important.
This approach to healthcare was so refreshing - a holistic approach to living rather than a 15 min visit to ease the latest set of physical symptoms, with no thought or mention of how the psychological might be impacting the physical.
The next day I was booked in for a pulse consultation with Dr Parvati Raju which was such an incredible experience. Rather than talking through what’s ailing you, the Vaidya simply takes your wrist in their hands and gently feels your pulse to discover everything they need to know about your health! It was astounding what she picked up from this seemingly simple act and she immediately identified my recent surgery and the fatigue in my system without me having to say a word.
Alongside Ayurvedic remedies to get me back to perfect health, Dr Raju prescribed a daily routine sequence, dietary advice, specific asana postures and exercise recommendations. She also opened up my marma points (important junctions in the body where stress tends to collect) so that the Banana Treatment could be as effective as possible. It felt very reassuring and holistic compared with a quick doctor’s visit that often leaves one with more questions than answers! One comment that she made really stuck with me, it was along the lines of “Mother Nature will support you and take the pain away - give the pain to nature, so it can convert and process it. Give it away so it can be transformed.” I cannot ever imagine those words coming out of a Western doctor’s mouth, but it was the perfect prescription for that moment in time.
Following this consultation, I started BT in the evening. In order to receive optimum results from the therapy, you need to follow a strict diet so I started on my milk rice ‘banquet’ during the day after my pulse diagnosis, then drove out to West Auckland to receive the BT in the evening. I was feeling quite trepidaceous going into it, not knowing what to expect. Had I inadvertently joined a cult? Why bananas? What was going to happen to me?! However, these worries were far less impactful than the years of pain that I had endured so I was willing to push through nearly anything to get the help I needed.
All worries fell away once I got to the treatment location. There were about 50 people lined up outside the treatment room, resting in silence in the gentle dusk light and waiting for their turn to take the BT. It was such a peaceful environment, I took my seat and rested in gentle awareness. The Vaidyas came out with trays of leaves, containing a small piece of banana coated in herbs that had had specific yagyas (Vedic ceremonies) performed over them, and proceeded to administer these to each person in turn facing East and all the while having the intention of perfect health in our minds. My diary from that time had the following note;
“I sat back down and instantly started sinking into the earth - I was of the earth and the earth itself. The taste of smoke and dust and nature in my mouth. I could feel the herbs move through my body and now they sit in my stomach churning through my impurities, pain, sluggish energy. I surrender to nature. I surrender to perfect health.”
Silence needs to be observed for at least 30 minutes before and after taking the treatment so I left quietly, went on a walk under the blackening sky, then drove back home and fell into a deep 10 hour sleep.
The next day I felt like my head was in a vice and I was so exhausted. As you’re unable to have any caffeine while taking BT and you have such a simple diet, I was having serious withdrawals from coffee and all the other terribly stimulating things like chocolate, sugar and heavy carbs that I was ingesting at that time. While this might sound bad (and tbh it felt even worse!) I was really glad that this was happening as it made me realise how bad my diet and habits had become and how much there was in me to detox. What’s that old phrase “you have to go through it to get through it”!
My body really was going through all the old, unnecessary outdated rubbish in my system and ridding it for good, thank goodness, but I can’t say it was necessarily comfortable so I had a nap and tried to rest as much as possible. Over this time my senses started to come alive, which made me realised how dulled I had become to all of the sensory experiences in the world. I could smell individual meals being cooked around the neighbourhood and petrol fumes were completely overwhelming. The thought of surrendering to Mother Nature came in and out of my consciousness alongside holding on to old suffering health stories that felt hard to get go of.
The next evening I went off for my second treatment in the company of the gathered crowd and once again felt as though I was sinking into the grass at the treatment centre, then into the sand at the beach I visited on the way home. The feeling of connection with nature was profound, unlike anything I had experienced before.
My final treatment was in the early morning dawn, then I went get our cat’s last supper from the supermarket before we had to put her down that afternoon. It made me ponder life, death, the transition from one state to the other and how we have to realise what we have while we have it. Perfect health is ours for the taking, but we need the awareness to realise this!
Days one and two post-treatment - I was full of doubt and had a few health flare ups, worrying at the time about whether I’d wasted my time and money on this therapy. Looking back on it now however, I realise that my body was starting to release all the very deeply stored trauma and toxins that had been plaguing me for years. BT is a treatment that can be the equivalent of one to two 28 day Panchakarma, so the purifying and cleansing is incredibly deep and profound. “Panchakarma is the combination of two words ~ PANCHA meaning five and KARMA meaning action. They are the five procedures to eliminate the toxins which have accumulated in our body since many years… the therapy powerfully cleanses the body and revitalizes the inner balance that is essential for good health.”
Day three post-treatment - I started to feel much improved. No cramps, no inflamed pelvic pain and no headache, feeling lighter, more present and more aware. I began to give myself abhyanga which helped my mind connect back to my body, a connection that had been missing for years.
One week post-treatment - In my diary I noted that I felt like a “new baby, vulnerable, exposed, pink flesh without defense or cover”. It felt like I was going through the stages of transformation or rebirth and I was exceptionally tired… which was to be expected as developing a whole new skin is tiring! I kept seeing swans everywhere (a symbol of wisdom and awakening the power of self) and reading tales of wild women on the edge, running towards the danger. I started a Dinacharya practice each morning and getting up earlier and I was gaining lots of clarity around my mental health, realising how I had been putting myself in unsafe situations for years… this period felt like waking up from a dream.
Two weeks post-treatment - I was feeling very out of body, very unsettled, couldn’t make decisions and had many tears. The treatment had coincided with starting therapy for some old unresolved trauma, so everything came to a head at this point. While this period was incredibly hard, I was so grateful to be supporting myself on multiple levels with wise and caring therapeutic, meditation and Ayurvedic communities.
“Grief, fatigue sadness, disconnection, overwhelm, I feel it all and I’m ready to move through to the other side”
Alongside the difficult feelings, I started to feel an expansion in my consciousness and become far more aware of my surroundings. During surya namaskar, which I was doing outside in the mornings, I noted that I was gaining micro and macro perspectives on the world… from a blade of grass poking out from under my mat to the celestial sphere and the beautiful blue autumn sky. Moss vs Mars was how I started to think about this time.
Four weeks post-treatment - A change in feeling, a change in the air, scales falling from my eyes, seeing people as they really are and completely accepting who they are. Coming out of extreme fatigue and seeing the world crystal clear. I started taking the Ayurvedic treatments that were prescribed for me and I got the same feeling as when I took BT, a delicious heavy earthy sensation that quite literally grounded me after years of floating about in my mind, completely disconnected from my body.
Aside from this deep connection back to myself, a huge reduction in pain and much more space and ease, some unexpected but very welcome side effects that I hadn’t planned for were that I stopped eating meat, drinking coffee, eating sugar and biting my nails. These were obviously things that my body had to let go of at that time (it’s actually just occurred to me that they are all related to stimulation and emotional regulation) and a year on I still have a meat and coffee free diet.
I’ll finish with a quote from my diary that pretty much sums up the whole experience…
“BT was life changing - not quite in the way I imagined, but more in the way that I needed. Deep foundational change and tectonic shifts as well as increasing ‘knowing’ power.”
If you’d like to give Banana Treatment a go, the Raju’s are visiting Aotearoa from the 1st - 6th July 2024. Click here to find out more and book your place.