Ahimsa—Love in Action: August 2026

Practicing Love in Action at Moonflower Yoga & Ayurveda Studio in Brookfield

This past weekend, I spent hours cleaning, organizing, and preparing different corners of our home.

Not because it’s something I particularly enjoy.

Because it’s something that helps me feel safe.

As I continue my journey toward motherhood, I’ve found myself craving more simplicity, more order, and more intention in the spaces around me. Some people call it nesting. I’ve been thinking of it as an act of protection.

It’s my way of taking care of my future self.

Removing little points of frustration. Creating steadiness where I can. Protecting myself from unnecessary overwhelm––well, as much as I can.

It isn’t glamorous (my tired feet would happily tell you that).

But, somewhere between reorganizing drawers and folding tiny baby clothes, I realized I was practicing ahimsa.

A New Understanding of Ahimsa

Ahimsa is often translated as non-harming.

When I first learned about it many years ago, I thought the meaning was fairly straightforward: don’t harm other people.

That seemed obvious enough.

So for nearly a decade, that’s how I understood the first yama of yoga. Ahimsa was about how we spoke to others, how we acted toward others, and how we moved through the world with compassion.

It wasn’t until I was studying Ayurveda at Kripalu that something shifted.

One of my teachers was walking us through the Eight Limbs of Yoga. While the yamas and niyamas belong to the broader tradition of yoga philosophy rather than Ayurveda itself, they offer beautiful guidance for how we care for ourselves—that relationship with self-care is deeply relevant to Ayurvedic living.

As the lecture unfolded, something landed in a way it never had before.

Ahimsa wasn’t only asking me how I treated other people.

It was asking me how I treated myself.

The realization hit me like a wrecking ball.

I began thinking about moments when I had been harmed by others.

Then my mind drifted to something even more difficult.

The times I had allowed myself to be harmed.

The ways I had spoken to myself.

The situations I had stayed in.

The ways I had abandoned my own needs.

The ways I had unknowingly repeated harm toward myself.

Before I knew it, tears were streaming down my face. I sat quietly through the rest of the lecture, trying to absorb what had just surfaced.

Afterward, a few classmates and I wandered to the Grandmother Tree on the Kripalu grounds—a place that somehow always seemed to hold a quiet kind of wisdom.

One friend gently reminded me of something I’ve never forgotten.

Sometimes we simply don’t know that we’re harming ourselves.

We learn.

Sometimes the hard way.

And once we know better, we can do better.

Learning from What We’ve Lived

In Ayurveda, there’s a concept called prajñāparādha, often translated as “the mistake of the intellect.”

It’s the tendency to continue making choices we know create imbalance.

When I teach this concept, I usually joke about cheese.

Knowing cheese makes you constipated…

…and eating it every day anyway.

(We’re in Wisconsin, after all.)

People laugh because it’s relatable.

But the teaching isn’t really about cheese.

It’s about what happens when the experience of imbalance becomes our teacher.

It’s about the moments when we know a habit, a relationship, a schedule, or a pattern is causing imbalance…

…and we continue anyway.

In her book The Yamas and Niyamas, Deborah Adele writes; “When we find balance, we automatically live in nonviolence.”

But finding balance is not generally a walk in the park.

Sometimes it’s a long process, with ups and downs, twists and turns.

Sometimes that’s because change is difficult.

Sometimes it’s because we haven’t yet realized we are worthy of something different.

Sometimes we simply haven’t learned another way.

There is compassion in recognizing the difference.

Knowing better isn’t about creating shame.

It’s about creating the possibility of choosing differently.

And, sometimes we don’t get a choice in our suffering. Sometimes our suffering truly is the product of circumstances we can’t control.

In his poem For Suffering, John O’Donohue writes:

May you know serenity
When you are called
To enter the house of suffering.

May a window of light always surprise you.

O’Donohue is wishing that we experience suffering with acceptance––suffering it is a part of life, after all.

And, he is wishing we see the other side of suffering––the light of a lesson amidst, or far after, a painful experience.

Protection As an Act of Love

Looking back, I don’t think spending the weekend organizing our home was really about having a tidy house.

It was an act of protection.

I was removing little points of friction before they became overwhelming.

I was taking care of my future self.

And the more I’ve reflected on it, the more I wonder if that’s one of the quiet invitations of ahimsa.

We often translate it as non-harming, but perhaps it’s also an invitation to protect ourselves from harm.

Ahimsa teaches us to notice where we’re creating unnecessary suffering.

To notice where others are creating it.

And, little by little, to choose differently.

Protection isn’t always dramatic.

Sometimes it’s rest.

Sometimes it’s a boundary.

Sometimes it’s asking for help.

Sometimes it’s preparing a space that helps us breathe a little easier.

We instinctively protect the people we love.

Parents protect their children. Friends look out for one another. We protect the forests, rivers, and wildlife we hope future generations will know because we recognize their inherent value.

So why is it sometimes so difficult to extend that same protection to ourselves?

Maybe ahimsa isn't only about asking, how can I avoid causing harm?

Maybe it's also asking,

How can I protect what is precious?

Including myself.

Ahimsa reminds us that we are worthy of the same love and protection we give others.

Love in Action

This is where another practice comes to mind: metta, or loving-kindness meditation.

While metta comes from the Buddhist tradition, I’ve always appreciated how beautifully it complements ahimsa—and how it beings balance during Pitta season (summer to early fall).

If ahimsa asks us to refrain from causing harm, metta asks us to actively cultivate goodwill.

Metta meditation asks us to send love and well wishes to ourselves, our loved ones, our world––even to those who have harmed us. 

Metta asks us to put love into practice, even when it feels sticky or complex.

In this way, metta is an expression of ahimsa.

In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali tells us; “In the presence of one firmly established in nonviolence, all hostilities cease” (Sutra II.35, translated by Sri Swami Satchidananda).

Patanjali is really telling us that when we live with ahimsa in our hearts, it impacts everyone and everything around us.

When we choose to live from a place of non-harming, we bring harmony everywhere we go.

We bring love everywhere we go.

Becoming a Good Friend to Yourself

I often return to a line from John O’Donohue’s poem For Friendship:

“May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.”

I’ve found myself sitting with that sentence often these days.

Ahimsa is truly about how we treat ourselves first.

When we treat ourselves with love, just like a good friend, we bring more love into the world.

So, what if ahimsa, at its core, is about learning to be a good friend to yourself first.

And what does a good friend actually do?

A good friend notices when we’re overwhelmed.

Encourages us to rest.

Celebrate our joys.

Speaks honestly, but gently.

Protects us when we’re struggling.

Reminds us of our worth when we’ve forgotten.

What if ahimsa is inviting us to become that kind of friend to ourselves?

What if protecting our own wellbeing wasn’t selfish, but one of the most loving things we could do?

Coming Home

Looking back, I think that’s what I was really doing while organizing our home this weekend.

Preparing a safe place for someone I already love.

And somewhere along the way, I realized I was preparing one for myself, too.

Maybe that’s what ahimsa has been trying to teach me all along.

Not simply to avoid causing harm.

But to become someone who protects life with love.

Including my own.

May you remember that you are worthy of your own care.

Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu ~ May all beings everywhere be happy and free.

In loving kindness,

Katie