Tag Archive for: Denver

The Truth Which Equals Love: Fullfilling

It felt great to give myself permission to follow up with #1 because these were tangible things.  The matches gave me some control over #2 except I had hit or miss days with the meditation.  I knew that 30 minutes seemed ambitious for my first project but I am still fighting my urge to please in this project.  I set up a meditation area in my room.  This was another tangible activity so it felt like my time for meditation was “official” which made me feel more devoted to the idea of practice.  I could visually control this area with candles, fabric, and a favorite pillow but would get frustrated when my brain wouldn’t calm down.

#3 was difficult because I found that the more I meditated, the more questions I had.  My journal is filled with questions that would pop up at the strangest times.  This seemed counterintuitive to the idea of meditation quieting the mind.  It felt like I had turned a blender on high and this journal was the catchall for thought puree.  Some of the questions were related to the study of yoga like “How do I balance satya and ahimsa?” and “Who determines this balance?”  Other questions were more personally identified like “Why am I forcing myself to go 1,000 miles a minute?”, “What is something I can do to have some awareness when I am going too fast?”, and “Will these things matter in the future?”  Writing these questions down was a way to acknowledge what I had been avoiding by keeping myself busy.  While I don’t have the answers for even half of these questions, I have started the process of trying to answer them.  Seeing these questions and thoughts in my journal was scary but allowed me to validate these feelings that I’ve suppressed by keeping so busy.  It also allowed me to identify that there’s no rush other than my own self-imposed rush and that much of my frustration at the world was really a frustration towards myself directed outward.

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The Truth Which Equals Love: Recognizing

After conducting this experiment, I feel like I have started the process of being truthful with myself but that I have only barely scratched the surface.  I find that I like giving myself permission to say no or to establish boundaries when it comes to activities.  It has made the activities that I have participated in more fulfilling.  I am also not agitated during activities that I have consciously and thoughtfully chosen to take part in.  I have started keeping track of the activities I am currently engaged in on a calendar so that I can ensure that I have scheduled time for myself and I don’t overbook myself.  I have been less irritated at work and more productive because I am focusing on each project fully instead of trying to work on four different things at once.  This is not to say that this experiment has been a complete success as I regressed to previous behaviors where I allowed myself to become overloaded at work and at home, resulting in the usual lash out.  However, by redirecting myself, continuing my experiment, and following the guidelines I set up, I was able to come back to the path that I was trying to follow on this experiment.  I found a great interpretation of satya on the internet as “the Truth which equals love”.  I think that this is one of the most important things I’ve discovered in this experiment.  Through being truthful with myself, I am loving myself.

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Getting Rid of the Rubbish

The following posts describe one Axis YTT student’s efforts to rid the body of residual rubbish through the niyama, tapas. Creating internal heat through pranayama and asana resulted in multiple benefits, both physically and emotionally.

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Getting Rid of the Rubbish – Setting the intention

Ever since Winter hit and I got my job camping out in the wilderness every other week, I had been finding myself lethargic and toxic.  I was eating low quality foods like ramen, simple grains, and cheap cheese all week, and then coming back home every other week to find myself “too busy” to keep up my regular yoga practice, or even exercise.  The wilderness therapy job did, however, leave me feeling spiritually fulfilled and in a calm and clear mental space, so when I was asked to create an experiment pertaining to the ethical precepts of Patanjali’s Ashtanga Yoga, I knew that I would like to work with that residual toxic feeling leftover from the job, and the lethargic feeling it left me with.

The Niyama Tapas deals directly with the internal “rubbish” of the body, and heating the body with activities such as asanas and pranayama as a way of expelling that rubbish.  It also pertains to eating and habits and breathing patterns as ways to internally cleanse the body.  In order to implement this internal cleansing process in my life, I first and foremost made it a point to resist that lazy urge not to get off my butt and move in the morning, and engage in some sort of physical activity (including asana and pranayama) every day.  I also committed myself to not eating when I was not hungry, which has been a bad habit of mine for years in times of stress and also in times of celebration.

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Getting Rid of the Rubbish – Feeling the Results

At first it was extremely difficult to gain that initial impetus to roll out my yoga mat and do asana every morning, and then to abstain from eating breakfast for another stretch of time until I finished my pranayama exercises.  I started my experiment late because I had to finish my last week of work, but for a full ten days (including teacher training days), I managed to engage in at least one hour of yoga practice and one hour of other internal heat-producing exercises per day.  After the first few days, it became much easier to motivate myself to start, once the life-enhancing effects started to show up in my body as a feeling of lightness and increased energy.  The yoga practices almost completely erased my compulsion to eat out of stress rather than out of hunger, and it even had the unexpected result of making sweets much less appealing to me, as well.

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Getting Rid of the Rubbish – Examining the Causes

I think that the root cause of all of these changes in my attitude and body was the heightened sense of connection to my body that my Yoga practice brings to my life.  I have found other subtle changes like an increased awareness of exactly how different foods make my body feel, an increased sensitivity to other people’s bodies and feelings, and of my surroundings in general.  I find myself able to stay calm and centered more easily in stressful situations, and I am less and less drawn to toxic substances like alcohol and caffeine.

Also, I think part of what allowed me to break the habit of non-action was the physical cleansing of my external environment after finishing my final week of work.  I undertook the daunting project of cleaning my car.  I organized things, took them out and put them in storage, and spent several hours scrubbing the inside and outside until my friends thought I had gotten a new car.  It sounds so superficial, but that simple act of cleaning out the space in which I practically live, had the effect of cleaning out my mind, as well, and giving me the feeling of organization and the ability to be productive in my life.  That type of cleaning falls more under the category of the Sauca Niyama, pertaining to the inner and outer cleanliness of body and mind, but having done that helped immensely in creating the space for me to start the process of creating the inner heat of Tapas to clean out my physical body.

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Getting Rid of the Rubbish – Conclusion

In terms of Tapas, I got the immense gift from this experiment of experiencing firsthand how creating an inner heat can cleanse the body and how that can radiate out to so many aspects of our lives and beings.  It makes sense that creating heat in the body would cause it to sweat and breathe out toxins, and ignite the digestive fires to eliminate toxins as efficiently as possible, as well.  Now I know kinesthetically the lightness of being that comes with having fewer toxins in my body and how the connectedness with my body that comes with that, translates to a natural decreased desire to put more toxins in my body.  I am also beginning to see how working on this one Niyama, has translated in to a natural reinforcement of all of the Niyamas and Yamas in my life, as well. I am grateful to have had this opportunity, and I believe it has brought me back (at least semi-permanently) to my old habits of regular activity and daily yoga practice, which benefit me so greatly.

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Small Task, Big Insight

For the first life experiment in the Axis Yoga Teacher Training program, this student attempted to make a small change in the recognition of Tapas. Through a regular pranayama practice an old observation was rediscovered. This unexpected turn of events made the experiment even more successful.

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Small Task, Big Insight – Observation and Hypothesis

TAPAS –

Austerity; character development; restrain from non-supportive desires.

Observation:

I always want to end my meals with something sugary and sweet – candy or dessert/treat.  I can’t focus on anything else until I get that last satisfaction of my desire which usually only lasts for a millisecond.  Immediately after consuming, I am physically ill – headache, dizzy, nauseous and shaky.  I know I will feel this way after so then why do I still want it?  I want to experience a sense of calm and consciousness beforehand in order to make a better decision or before I start the sweet search and yearning.

Hypothesis:  If I don’t allow myself something sweet, initially, I will be agitated and upset from the deprivation.  But not having to deal with the physical consequences that usually occur after will only benefit me.  Practicing daily pranayama (The Eight Kriyas and yogic breathing) will guide me to a more steady mind and a calmer body.  And maybe then, I will be able to stop, think and decide more clearly.

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Small Task, Big Insight – Getting Started

Of course, upon sitting down in the Tapas Group, I had no idea what I was going to pick to observe and experiment upon myself.  What is there to share about myself that I want to change, work on, and have others know about me so up close and personal?  I chose my specific yama, Tapas, to work on refraining from eating sugar.  I immediately judged myself for picking such a surface topic, “Why would one be embarrassed to share that?  Who cares?  Everyone else is picking a thing to better themselves or observe something hidden within.”  I pretty much committed to it, told myself that it will be alright, and that based off of our guest speakers’ insight, I just might discover something from even the simplest of topics…

Practicing the Eight Kriyas every morning was how the experiment was launched.  It took me a couple times to figure out where, when and how I was going to accomplish this new ritual.  With a boyfriend that sometimes works from home and a dog that thinks my lap is his fair game – tapping into even the dawn of the experiment already required patience and creativity!  I caught myself embarrassed of letting my boyfriend know what I was doing.  Finally, after being tired of looking for places to hide or having him interrupt me during my exercise, I told him what was up.  From there my morning cup of Eight Kriyas was born.

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