• Columnists

Jill Leslie, Ayurveda Alchemy

COLUMN = HEALTHY LIVING

Jill Leslie is a certified Ayurvedic practitioner, herbalist, wellness chef, and yoga teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area who, for more than two decades, has been immersed in the study and practice of natural healing.

The entrepreneur, who has owned her own businesses since graduating from the University of Maryland in 1986, founded the award-winning retail shop Milk & Honey in Sebastapol, CA, in 1999. She sold it in 2006 so that she could dive deeper into her study of yoga and Ayurveda.

As she discovered the life-changing wisdom of these ancient practices, she began sharing her knowledge at wellness retreats, yoga studios, and through cooking classes. Her passion for herbal medicine and nutrition, and her love of sweets, inspired her to found Ayurvedic Alchemy, in 2008.

In addition to hosting classes and events, and providing consultations and dietary advice about Ayurveda, she has created a line of healthy and delicious confections, which are available online at Kitchen Alchemy Treats. “When I learned the adage of Ayurveda, ‘Let your food be your medicine,’ I put on my apron and said, ‘Let your medicine be delicious,’” she says.

Learn more about her services at www.AyurvedaAlchemy.com.

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

– T.S. Eliot

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

– John Quincy Adams

Things don’t change. You change your way of looking, that’s all.”

– Carlos Castaneda

When I was younger I thought success was being a star, driving nice cars, having groupies. But today I think the most important thing is to live your life with integrity.

– Ellen DeGeneres

To follow, without halt, one aim: There’s the secret of success.”

– Anna Pavlova

The quality of your life is directly related to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably live with.”

– Tony Robbins

The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.”

– Marcel Proust

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

– Groucho Marx

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”

– Abraham Lincoln

Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!”

– Madam C.J. Walker

The great use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.”

– William James

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”

– Jimi Hendrix

You’ve got to be willing to crash and burn. If you’re afraid of failing, you won’t get very far.”

– Steve Jobs

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”

– Magical

The awakening to the mystery of life is a revolutionary event; in it an old world is destroyed so that a new and better one may take its place.”

– J.J. Van Der Leeuw, The Conquest of Illusion

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.”

– Robert Fritz

Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had.”

– Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

– T.S. Eliot

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.”

– Albert Schweitzer

The gem cannot be polished without friction; nor man perfected without trials.”

– Chinese proverb

A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.”

– Carlos Castaneda

Don’t follow your dreams. Chase them.”

– Richard Dumb

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

– Seneca

I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.”

– Thomas Edison

As each woman realizes her power, she transforms the world.”

– Patrice Wynne, WomanSpirit Sourcebook

If you would create something,
 you must be something.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Anything not worth doing well is not worth doing.”

– Warren Buffett

How do you stay resilient? It’s about momentum. Like riding a bicycle. If you stop you fall over. So I keep pedaling.”

– Diane Lane

Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.”

– J. Kristnhamurti, The First and Last Freedom

If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.”

– Anna Quindlen

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”

– Leo Jozef Suenens

That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.”

– Henry David Thoreau

I may not be able to change what takes place, but I can always choose to change my thinking.”

– Michelle Sedas

Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.”

– Arthur Rubinstein

I’ve come to confirm that one’s title, even that of president, says little about how well one’s life has been led. No matter how much you’ve done, or how successful you’ve been, there’s always more to do, to learn, and to achieve.”

– Barack Obama

If you do not tell the truth about yourself
, you cannot tell it about other people.”

– Virginia Woolf

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. 
Now put foundations under them.”

– Henry David Thoreau

Are you willing to help other people succeed even when it’s not a requirement of your job to be of assistance?”

– Steven Schussler

Almost anyone can start a community, but it takes real talent and commitment to get people to show up and keep coming back.”

– Andy Sernovitz

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.”

– President Calvin Coolidge

You may ask me for anything you like except time.”

– Napoleon

Your own words are the bricks and mortar
of the dreams you want to realize.
 The words you choose and their use establish the life you experience.”

– Sonia Croquette

The world I believed in, back in my most innocent, uninformed, childish mind—is real.”

– Martha Beck

He who knows he has enough is rich.”

– Tao Te Ching

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which obstacles vanish.”

– John Quincy Adams

The dove descending breaks the air / With flame of inkandescent terror.”

– T.S. Eliott