Words of wisdom by my esteemed yoga teacher, Cindy Dollar. Youre already enough. Sigh... can we ever get that? Someday. To Do...Or To Be As this year begins, I watch my mind come up with all sorts of good ideas about how I plan to super-charge my healthy habits. I’m going to do more asana, meditate more, walk the dog more, study the sutras more, and spend more time with my husband. Right behind those “good ideas” is a voice in my head that says, “Sure. When do you have time to do that? You’re already overwhelmed and overextended.” Whoa! Is that so? Any of it? First of all, am I really in need of more yoga, meditation, walking, studying, or even more time with my husband? And, what about being overwhelmed and overextended: which part of me believes that is true…and why? I think many of us get caught up in the idea of changing our habits or improving our life, especially when the New Year arrives. The countless self-improvement books and audios out there suggest that if only we were different we’d be better and happier—kind of like a new and improved dish detergent. Don’t get me wrong: I support the intention of self-improvement without self-recrimination. The key, I believe, is to first examine our desire to improve or change: does the desire come from a place of personality’s wants, or does it arise from a place of wise intelligence? The personality gets caught up in wanting and craving (raga) from a place of not enough, as in: I’m not good enough; I don’t practice yoga enough; and I don’t even meditate at all. This chain of beliefs often leads us to give up on creating healthy habits by concocting excuses such as, in my case, “I am overwhelmed and overextended.” The other kind of desire (tapas) comes from a place of wisdom that leads to right effort (virya), as in: I know that my body feels better when I practice yoga; I know that sitting in meditation calms me down; I know that I’m kinder to myself and others when I feel better. And, speaking for myself, I actually have a more spacious and less time-constrained life when I practice these healthy habits. So then, let me practice what I know leads me to less suffering. B.K.S. Iyengar ascertained that as human beings we are enough, but as practitioners, we could use some improvement! He emphasized the importance of steadfast effort. So when personality tries to convince us that we won’t be able to follow-through on eating more nutritious food or practicing more yoga, don’t pay that self-negating “I” any attention. Just walk on over to your mat and get started! Show up and practice, stay true to your intentions, knowing from your own experience that you feel better when you do. As we look at what we want from 2015, let’s look at how we want to be rather than what we want to do. If we set our intention to “Do more yoga,” can we set it from a place of compassion for the part of us that knows deep down that the practice brings us more clarity? In Cheri Huber’s book, Making a Change for Good, our book club selection for January, she writes that when we use compassionate self-discipline, rather than an “I need to fix this” mentality, we are guided by the intelligence and generosity that is our authentic nature. As she writes” “We don’t lack self-discipline, we lack presence.” So from this new orientation, take a look at your list of New Year’s resolutions and examine your intention. Imagine bringing presence, compassion, and right effort to the practice of what you want to change. See if that doesn’t help lead you towards happiness and freedom. You’re already enough. Namasté, Cindy
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 04:01:27 +0000
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