As in the initial story of the Rabbi and the stingy man reveal, one can let go of hoarding and change those beliefs that no longer serve you. I hope to deepen my own patience, persistence, presence and lovingkindness towards myself in this journey of non-grasping and making it simpler.
Axis Yoga Teacher Training Students begin their studies with a hands-on study of Yoga’s yamas (restraints) and niyamas (observances). Through some self-reflection this student found the road to santosha (contentment) to be a mingling of all yamas and niyamas.
Selecting the yama/niyama I was going to focus on for my experiment was a difficult process for me. Upon reading through all of them, it seemed like there were bits and pieces in each one that needed improving on in my life. On the evening in class where we were told to separate in to groups […]
Ironically, that same evening, I had opened my class notebook to some “favorite quotes” I had been keeping track of since class began. There, sitting in the top spot, was one that I had written down during the first week of class that had resonated with me from the Mirror of Yoga book: “Contentment is […]
I set out to be content. Enter daily life. A beautifully challenging teenage daughter. A marriage. A huge redecorating project that I had volunteered for with a deadline. A beautifully challenging teenager now with a broken collar bone and pretty cranky. Financial challenges. A broken car (again). etc. etc. This is going to take A LOT of practice, this […]
Over the past two weeks, me and my little mantras have become very close. They have been helping me to “be aware”. I have been practicing. Weighing each word before speaking it…staya. As I try to push my opinions on my teenager and husband, I found myself literally stopping in mid sentence and calling on […]
So as we approach this beautiful season of springtime, I plant my garden of contentment. I spread my yama and niyama seeds into the earth. I “drop the control” as fertilizer. I shower it with the awareness of contentment each day, I bathe it in the warmth and depth of meditation each day, and watch […]
Axis Yoga Teacher Training students complete a personal experiment as part of the culmination of course study. This student started the experiment with a practical application of lessons learned during the program. But it was a bigger lesson in awareness and its effect on life that the experiment ended up teaching.
My personal experiment was originally going to entail a daily home sadhana and applying ayurvedic remedies to determine if either would have an effect on my chronic headache condition. The first week went well and I practiced each morning. Sadhana started with a warm?up, three surya namaskar, pranayama practice, and meditation. After reading about some restorative asanas that may help headache conditions, I replaced the warm?up and sun salutations with restorative viparita karani mudra or supta badha konasana. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice a change in the daily headaches, they appeared to be as variable as they usually were with the high grade headaches coming as frequently as normal; about two a week.
Then, I got sick. Not hospital sick, just a head cold. But, by my reaction to it, you wouldn’t have known it was just a head cold. My lack of presence during that week of illness was astounding. I flowed through my days completely unaware of my actions at any given moment. I did not even experience the weird duality I sometimes do when life’s challenges prove difficult to handle. In my dual state, I am, at least, aware that I am a wreck. I watch myself, shaking my head and laughing at how serious and attached I am to making others happy and ensuring that the things I “should do” as a responsible adult get done. It’s as if a part of me is separate from the insanity. At these moments, I get the tiniest of insights into one of Hafiz’s quotes. “God and I have become like two giant fat people living in a tiny boat. We keep bumping into each other and laughing.” Part of me is muddling through and the separate part of me finds that fact absolutely hysterical while asking “Why muddle when you can skip?” I’m still figuring out how to answer that question (which, I might add, my separate self finds even funnier). There was no watching myself during that particular week of illness; I look back now on that week as if it were a dream. I slept my way through it as I slept my way through all of my younger life. Sadhana during that week was no more than a twinkle in my mind; something else that I should do and wasn’t doing. Even the daily sadhana that I do at work was put aside.