Experimenting with a yama or niyama allows Axis Yoga Teacher Training students to have real-life experience with how Yoga can affect their lives. This student worked with the niyama Santosha (contentment) to keep a healthy perspective and focus on the positive things in life.
The niyama I chose for my first experiment is santosha, or contentment. I selected this particular niyama because I have noticed how easy it can be to become wrapped up in daily life and in dealing with major life stresses, leading to negative thought patterns, a sense of unhappiness, or at the very least a general malaise. I have also found, during challenging times, I sometimes tend to focus on dealing with whatever mayhem is occurring in my life at that time and lose sight of the big picture, and the things that are good in my life. During these times I also often lose sight of myself, and my focus on physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing. For this reason, I felt conducting my experiment on santosha would be appropriate and beneficial because contentment is something that fluctuates regularly for a 5th year doctoral student dealing with some significant life challenges.
I can lose sight of all the blessings in my life when things become difficult or hectic and feel a subsequent sense of general discontent.
A shift in perspective, or a gentle reminder of all the good things in life, and all the things I have to be thankful for, is sometimes exactly what I need. It is for this reason I chose to conduct my personal experiment on santosha. I was feeling the need to re-center myself and remind myself of all the reasons I wake up each morning and all the beings and things that put a smile on my face.
If I take time to mindfully acknowledge the things in my life for which I am thankful, instead of focusing my energy on the negative things, I will experience a shift in perspective and increase my sense of wellbeing.
To do this, I engaged in a gratitude practice. I kept a journal in my nightstand, and every night before going to sleep I wrote down three things I was grateful for. I left the parameters of my experiment open so my list could include people, places, animals, foods, stars, the weather, etc. Nothing was off-limits for the gratitude list. If I felt moved enough or touched enough to include the same item on the list more than one day per week, or even every day, I could. If the list ended up being all foods or all flowers, that was fine too. No judgment. No restrictions.
Every night before going to sleep, write down three people, places, or things for which I am grateful.
When I first began this experiment with santosha, I sometimes needed a few moments of thought to come up with three things to add to the list. But as I moved further into the experiment and began truly embodying the practice, not only did it become easier to come up with three things, some days it was difficult to only write three down. There were a few days I was so overwhelmed by gratitude I had to write down five or more things just so as to not neglect feeling or explicitly expressing gratitude. I knew things had shifted when I felt myself getting fired up in traffic one day and I was able to talk myself back from the brink by reframing the situation and mentally thanking the person in front of me (going 45 in a 65) for the opportunity to practice patience. Usually those people just get the finger, not my gratitude.
Taking the time to mindfully acknowledge and record three things I am grateful for each day was a powerful personal reminder to maintain focus on the blessings in life.
There are far too many negative things in the world to distract us from what is important and placing my attention on the things in life that make me happy, instead of things that upset me, helped create just the shift in perspective I needed to feel better on a day to day basis. Engaging in this experiment also helped cultivate a change in how I look at the world and events and people around me. This occurred after a week into the practice; so, not only did this practice help create a space for acknowledging the positives, but it also increased my general levels of contentment and influenced how I interact with the world around me overall. Pretty powerful stuff.
I intend to continue with the gratitude practice indefinitely and I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this yama/niyama experiment.
Everyone hears their own chatter in their head at times. The message is sometimes full of praise but often times full of self-criticism. Learning to script the message of this chatter is something everyone can benefit from. This Axis Yoga Teacher Training student took time to reflect on this challenge while focusing on a return to creative expression.
In a big nutshell:
I have been an artist for as long as I can remember. Instead of connecting with people and relating, it was just me, a pen, and paper. Sitting for hours and drawing my life as I saw it or wanted it to be was my life force. School was art-centered. College was even better because it gave me more opportunity to fully immerse myself into being creative. Working in the corporate world for the past 13 years being told how to design and what to design sort of interrupted my flow of creativity up until last year when I left it all. The process to do my art again has been slow.
Idea:
I would like to give myself the opportunity to create something – a doodle, sketch, an entire piece — something expressive, something artistic once a week. Maybe then I can get that momentum going again and just have it flowing from my fingertips instead of reeling in my head and feeling stuck.
The process of being creative and staying creative has gone through different stages in my life. As a small child, it streamed like water from a steady flowing faucet. The thoughts, emotions, urges, expressions all came out effortlessly and consistently. School and college still supported the imagination but then the work started turning into assignments with due dates. Fast forward to the working world and corporation employment – something happens emotionally and/or mentally that somehow halts my ability to express myself. The ideas are there spinning in my head, collecting in folders on my computer desktop, saved and bookmarked…. but I just can’t seem to let it go.
The goal of creating something once a week to share with others was supposed to be an easy way to get it all out – to not feel stuck, to stop keeping it all inside and connect with others. The experiment was not as successful as I wanted it to be. One piece of work was created and shared within three weeks. There was a lot of judgment and criticism, “Only ONE piece of art in three weeks? Good artists constantly doodle and have something to reveal daily. What’s wrong with you?”
Having a busy schedule or other things taking priority is always the excuse. This experience has actually slowly been revealing itself within the past year. The journey has been full of me being with myself. I have been learning to guide, nurture, and encourage myself to start making art again. It truly is a daily affirmation game for me to get going. I never really needed it from the outside world because I have become numb to others’ prodding and confidence. I have even let positive comments from others to run dry through me. I needed it within myself to step onto the path and be my own biggest fan and supporter.
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The Denver Yoga Underground began in 2003 at the request of dedicated students who wanted to study yoga as a holistic system. Over the years, a diversity of people, seeking education outside of a studio, found a welcome refuge in DYU.
Today we specialize in grassroots Pay What You Can workshops, accessible retreats and our signature yoga teacher training, for the outlier yogi.
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