Accepting Self, Others and Life: The Experiment II

I was amazed by the realizations that I was having.  I was relieving anxieties I did not know I had, patching relationships I did not know were strained.  When I began to have a negative or judgmental thought of someone else, I practiced my yogic breath and sometimes even chanted the Gayatri Mantra to help center myself.  I was in control of myself and everything was going according to plan.  It was the night going into the third week of the experiment and I felt great and reflected on how thankful I was for choosing ahimsa.  I woke up that night with intense pain in my abdomen and to make a long story short, ended up in the hospital with appendicitis.  This was not part of my plan.  I missed the entire next week and a half of school and the experiment seemed over.  I was cut off form the world, assigned to bed rest, and prescribed painkillers.  Work stopped, axis yoga stopped, asana stopped, my world was put on pause without a notice or a choice.  I tried to stay optimistic about my recovery and quickly rejoining the rest of the world.  I was strong, determined, and in every other way, a healthy individual; I would be back on my feet in no time! I did not see the trap I was setting for myself, the impossible expectations that I was creating.  Towards the end of the first week of my recovery I could feel myself becoming depressed from boredom and immobility.  I went to yoga training and sat in class, I became more depressed knowing I could not fully participate.  I went to work six days after the surgery and went home in pain and overcome with complete exhaustion and had to take two more days off of work.  Instead of accepting life and healing, I was still setting impossible expectations and despairing when I could not meet them.  I was harming myself; I was no longer practicing ahimsa.

In the last few days, I have tried to slow down and be more patient and accepting of my recovery.  I have tried to actually listen to the doctors instead of my own expectations.  This is not easy for me.  In my perfect world, I could have finished the experiment and felt good about how well I did and how much I changed.  Life happened, I wasn’t ready for it but I am still trying.

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Accepting Self, Others and Life: Conclusions

My experiment will never be over.  Even though I believe, through my practice, my judgments about others and myself will reside and become easier to spot.  However, life will always happen and I will always have to choose how to react to it.  I did experience more peace when I was practicing ahimsa in my relationships and I will continue to work on this.  At the same time, I must also become more aware of how I am reacting to this world, especially when this world surprises me.  I will continue to practice patience with others as well as myself.  I want to continue exploring the eight limbs and be open to what they reveal to me.  I look forward to a lifetime of practicing the yogic way of life, even when life happens.

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Coming into my Spirit

Each year Axis YTT students find new awareness through their experiments with the yamas and niyamas. This student found the ability to “come into my spirit” through both passive and active surrender to God. This is the account of practicing the niyama, Ishvara Pranidhana.

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Coming into my Spirit: Contemplating the Niyama

Three weeks ago, sitting in class I was struggling with the decision of which yama/niyama group to choose. After listening to the mentors discuss their experiences I was moved and excited to begin my own journey. However, felt this was something I would carry with me much longer than three weeks, rendering the decision a difficult one. Nevertheless, as I listened to the last mentor discuss Ishvara Pranidhan I felt my heart gravitating toward this experiment group almost automatically. Just like that, I had chosen to surrender to God.

In the beginning, it was a little difficult to formulate my experiment. I started thinking of why Ishvara Pranidhan was an obvious choice and how I could apply it in my life appropriately. Currently my life is in a bit of a transitional state. Having recently moved to a new state I am searching for work in a difficult market and preparing to apply to an extremely competitive internship program. I find these situations frustrating because no matter how much I plan and prepare I have no control over the outcome. What’s more, I consider myself a super planner. I like to have a clear plan in life, which typically transcends into enjoying the security of controlled situations.  I think planning can be good to a degree, when it helps you to stay organized. However, the downfall is I often find myself trying to over-plan or control a situation that I have essentially had no control over. Therefore, I waste valuable time wondering, worrying, and becoming wrapped up in situations that may or may not happen. Which overall, results in not being present or valuing the given moments of the here and now.

After reflecting on this realization, I decided that if I surrender things beyond my control to God, then I will have more peace and it will allow me to be present in my life.

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Coming into my Spirit: Passive Surrender

I began journaling. This very cathartic experience allowed me to re-direct my thoughts in moments where my mind was spiraling out of control. Being a planner, I began to make daily lists of things that I wanted to focus on and that were tangible. The lists really helped me stay focused on the present task instead of letting my mind steam roll into the over-planning mode. When I found myself fixating on a situation that I had no control over I would literally tell myself “STOP” and offer the thought up to God. I found serenity in this practice because it felt like letting go and being free. I also began to develop a more consistent sahdna practice to help this process of letting go. These actions were all very helpful; however, Richard Freeman writes in The Mirror of Yoga that the surrender carries two connotations, one that is passive and one that is active. Most of what I was doing was passively surrendering to God by simply accepting things as they are and having trust in God. In order to fully immerse myself in the experiment I wanted to go a little deeper and work on an active surrender.

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Coming into my Spirit: Active Surrender

I decided to do this by offering service to Isvara through helping others. I began to research volunteer programs and places I could offer my service and dedicate my actions to the good of others.  I soon found this active surrender transcending throughout my daily life and my interactions with friends, family, the environment, and numerous other situations. Suddenly the situations I was toiling over were not that important, I could focus my energy, and efforts in helping others instead of letting my false ego flare up.

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Coming into my Spirit: Continuing on

To conclude-at times during the experiment I thought, “Did I pick the wrong group?” However, in the end I know I was right where I was meant to be and I feel so liberated within my joyful surrender. I know this will be an ongoing experiment and something I will need to work at but it is so worth it! Three weeks ago, I wrote in my journal a quote that says, “Surrendering control and apprehension to God allows me to come into my spirit”.  I do not think I could sum up my experiment any better.

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Surrendering Control

By embracing Ishvarapranidhana (surrender to God), this Axis Teacher Training student found peace that had been missing in daily life. Identifying a need for constant control and then practicing ways to relinquish that control was an excellent introduction to the application of the niyama Ishvarapranidhana.

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Surrendering Control: What to release

As I sit down to write this paper on the day of my divorce it comes as no surprise to me why I ended up with Ishvarapranidhana as my experiment, though going into it I really wasn’t sure if this was what I needed to do.  Ahimsa (non harming) fit well, so did Aparigraha (non grasping) and as I have come to see several of the Yama’s and Niyama’s kind of work hand in hand. But to put focus back onto Ishvaripranidhan, what was it that I really needed to surrender to God or “let go and let God” as I like to say.  Well let’s just look at this last year.

List of things to surrender to God

– False ideal of family

– Anger towards my now x husband for not putting me and the kids above his need for alcohol

– Feeling that I wasn’t a good mother because I asked for a divorce

– Feeling like I had to control every aspect of my life and getting completely derailed when things didn’t work out as I had planned

– Walls that I have put up to protect myself from ever having to go through the pain that I went through over the last 10 years of marriage

– So to summarize, because this list could go on, it really all boiled down to CONTROL.  I had to be in CONTROL so I wouldn’t repeat my mistakes.  I wasn’t living in the past but I wasn’t letting go of it either, and I was for sure going to MAKE SURE my future didn’t repeat my past mistakes.  This CONTROL has come to rule me and my relationships with my kids, friends, and new lover, and not in a good way.

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Surrendering Control: How to release

Once I came to the realization that I had a lot to let go of, Ishvaripranidhan made much more sense to me.  I decided that a way I could start working on my list was to start a daily Sadhana or meditation practice and log in a journal any jewels that came up, or feelings, or just a summary of that days meditation.  That would help me to calm my mind for at least that part of the day and maybe if I could get it to stop racing on all these things + many more, I could find some release and peace.

So I set out all excited to start that night with my meditation. I bought a new journal just for this meditation, I set up a time right before bed that was my time to meditate and I was off.  Here is the first few logs into my meditation journal:

Day 1

PM Sadhana practice in shower (water always helps me to calm down) was able to relax for 5 min, had feelings of exhaustion, mind wandering and had lack of focus.  Got a brief image of a light beam from the top of my head being covered by darkness, then it jumped to an image of a head tilted back screaming a beam of light into the sky.

What I took from day 1 was a need to find my voice and free it.  I have been holding on for so long that it is screaming to be free.  But How?

Day 2

Very tired fell asleep while trying to breath.

Day 3

Got busy with helping the kids with homework and forgot

Day 4

Worked late, maybe night time isn’t a good time for me to do Sadhana

Day 5

Argument with boyfriend consumed my every thought no relaxation today

Day 6

Gong Bath yeah! was able to relax but saw same image of beam of light covered by darkness

So you kind of get the idea that daily meditation at night was not working for me.  Oh what a coincidence I tried to control something and it didn’t work.  Of course not. Why wouldn’t it work for me, because I needed to let go of trying to control everything.  Don’t you just love the universe, it will keep smacking you in the face until you listen, trust me I have the rosy cheeks to prove it.  The only thing I can control is the way I react or respond to things in my life that happen.

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