Tag Archive for: Santosha

Shift in Perspective: Conclusion

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.

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A Journey Towards Contentment

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.

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A Journey Towards Contentment: Choosing

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 based on the yama selected, I felt like a lost puppy. Everyone seemed to move directly and effortlessly to their prospective group. I felt like everyone was so clear about what their intentions were with this experiment. In a pinch, I plopped myself down with the aparigraha group. Just pick one. Maybe I needed to work on that non-possessiveness thing with the objects and people in my life.  As we began to talk about aparigraha, it didn’t seem like a “perfect” fit. I’m not really a person who cares about material possessions, but maybe I need to delve further. I do feel that I try to control the people around me though. A possession of sorts. Maybe this “is” the perfect fit.  I was not content with my aparigraha decision.  Hmmm, “kind of sounds like Santosha” were the words that came from my wise yoga teacher as he sat observing our group.  Santosha?  That’s not even one of the options for this project!   It does kind of sound like I have an issue with discontentment though.What to do, what to do.

Later that evening when I got home, I re-read the yama’s and felt, maybe it’s staya that better fits my weakness. Maybe weighing my words before I speak them will help me to not try to control and fix everything. Then upon reading about asteya, I thought maybe that is the yama that best deserves my attention. Am I really being honest with myself?  Do I say one thing and act another? Do I criticize people for doing things, trying to control their actions, then turn around and do them myself? Then it hit me. An ah ha of sorts. Just this act of not being able to be content in picking a yama, searching for the perfect answer for my experiment, maybe this, maybe that, led me to consider those words from my teacher, Santosah…contentment.

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A Journey Towards Contentment: Defining

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 the ability to be happy right now for no particular reason at all.  “You can actually cultivate this feeling by simply deciding right now I am going to be content.” Santosha sounded more and more like a fit.

I have had a daily meditation practice for almost two years.  Though I have felt it has helped me in many ways, I feel my mind still races with discontentment while meditating.   Get this done, what if that happens, I must try to change it, get them to do it differently, etc. etc.  From my interpretation of what Santosha means, it is that “it is impossible for one who is dissatisfied with oneself or with anything else in life to realize the higher consciousness.” ” Dissatisfaction (the lack of contentment) makes sadhana impossible.”  Meditation impossible.  ” One who wants to attain meditation must practice ALL yamas and niyamas.” So, I realized, this is maybe why I had a problem picking my yama.  I need to practice ALL of them to reach Santosha…contentment.  Tall order.

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A Journey Towards Contentment: Applying

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 contentment thing.

To begin with, I decided to assign myself a mantra…”be content.”  I repeated this mantra daily, hourly, sometimes each minute to remind myself.  I liked this mantra.  We have become friends.  It helped to a certain extent.  I began offering my yoga practices to contentment.  This was a nice reminder also.  When I visited the Gong Bath, I sought out a crystal that would help with contentment.  Each morning, after my meditation, I would read over the yamas and contemplate how I can do things to live this knowledge.  All of these practices seemed to help me with becoming more content each day.

I did find, however, that when the going got really tough, like people dropping the ball with not doing what they were supposed to on my redecorating project, or my teenager not eating appropriately, or my husband not doing what “I” think is the “right” thing,  or my car breaking down for the eighth time, etc. etc.,  that my little mantra was challenged. “How can I be content in a situation like this?” Then one day, in the middle of waiting for someone who was 45 minutes late and I had a boat-load of things to do, I had another one of those ah ha moments. Contentment = dropping control. Stop – Drop – Control.  Kind of like that thing you were taught as a kid if you catch on fire. Pretty much the same concept too.  The more you run and struggle with the fire(control), the hotter and larger it will get and the more extensive the damage. So a second bouncing baby mantra was born to me, “drop control.”

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A Journey Towards Contentment: Reflecting

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 my “drop control” mantra. After all, they have their own dharma in this life. This absence of harmful control…ahimsa. Non-attachment to others through cleanliness. getting re-aquainted with my netti pot,  paying attention to food I am putting into my body and daily yoga and exercise to start, leading to contentment…shaucha. Becoming “aware” of this hidden wealth all these practices are bringing…asteya.   Working on non-possession of the outcome of the situation…aparigraha.  Ah, there is that aparigraha again.   Together, all of this leading toward the perfect body and mind.   Not to outwordly look good at the pool in a few weeks, but to ignite the internal flame…tapas, to lead to that deep meditative state and then, finally, contentment…Santosha.

I realize that in these short three weeks I cannot change the control I have been striving for over my lifetime.  This will take time.  Maybe the rest of my time in this body on this earth, but at least this experiment has made me that much more “aware” of the yama and niyama principles and it is a new start to the ultimate contentment.

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A Journey Towards Contentment: Continuing

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 as the new little sprouts of peace,  non-violence, truthfulness, honesty, vigor, energy, courage, non-possessiveness, cleanliness, purity, meditation, and most of all, contentment,  begin to sprout, grow, and flourish in this season I call my life.  My little mantras, “ be content” and “drop control”, always at my side, waiting to tap me softly on my shoulder least I forget they are there.

Thank you to all of my teachers, past, present, and future, who continue to help me find my center, my perfect yoga. My contentment.

Namaste.

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Greater Connection of Mind and Body through Brahmacharya and Santosha

Axis Yoga encourages its teacher training students to understand yoga’s yamas (restraints) and niyamas (observances) through real-life application. This student explores the application of Brahmacharya (continence) in the modern American world and how it applies to his individual situation. He also finds greater overall connection of body and mind through his focus on Santosha (contentment).

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Greater Connection of Mind and Body: Santosha

In this the niyama of Santosha has also become a part of my life organically by connecting my body with my mind. I have become more content with being myself more balanced.  I might add that for me, being a very rational and cerebral being, I struggle with using willpower to engage in enlightenment.

Having found myself with a biological predisposition towards depression, one to which I am unable to fully control with willpower or by thinking my way out of it, I have begun to doubt the usefulness of using willpower in all situations.

In this way I find my achievement over the last several months of becoming more balanced without force of mind, willpower, or trying to think my way out to be an amazing achievement.  One that has allowed me to be more content with my life. The sheer desire to connect more fully with my body (and to my mind, and to god) has driven this change and allowed me to be both more content with my own failings, as well as overcome them to some degree.

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