Hello friends! I’m not advocating that you wish away your days, but we are over half-way to the weekend! Things that help me stay present throughout the everyday drudgery include: writing this newsletter (obvi), going to a few yoga classes, planning and teaching my early morning Friday class, making weekend self-care plans, cooking nourishing meals, listening to good music in the car, and reading. While it wasn’t my intention to talk about the Yamas/Niyamas in a sequence of newsletters, that’s what has organically happened, in no particular order, just in a way that shows up each week for me. I’m always excited to see how intertwined the Eight Limbs are, and how they not only build on each other, but bring you back to concepts you thought you (naïvely) understood. Last week I talked about pratyahara, or the withdrawal of the senses, and cultivating pause in our lives to facilitate thoughtful response rather than flippant reaction. This week, I had brahmacarya show up again and again for me, and of course, it tucks right into my discussions on pratyahara. Brahmacarya is sometimes referred to as celibacy, as many students in ancient India were celibate while studying under a guru, but it also is the 4th Yama, and Yamas are collectively referred to as the “restraints.” I’ve heard “living with moderation,” or “balance” as translations, but I really like these interpretations:
Take a moment to reflect on your day to day life...where is your energy flowing? We get busy and equate that with purpose. We want stimulation, which can be good, revitalizing, energizing, but as with most things, too much leads to numbing and disconnection from ourselves and our loved ones.
Monday, I listened to a great podcast on the way to work, had a busy, productive day, and chatted with my sister on the way home. By 6:00 I was exhausted and ate a heavy (numbing) snack (i.e., mint chocolate cookies) that made me not want to move in the ways I had promised myself I would. I made myself do some light asana anyway, even though it wasn’t the cardio I had planned. Not only was I hindered physically, I felt a mental shift that put me in a bad mood, and I was short-tempered with my husband and dogs the whole evening. A couple of things I took away from this:
1) listen when I’m tired
2) keeping promises to myself is important. Even though I didn’t do the workout I wanted to or felt I needed to, I moved on my mat and walked my dogs and I let that be enough
3) what I put in my body really matters and I feel its effects more as I age, which brings me back to brahmacarya.
In Sutra II.381, “Hariharānanda adds that celibacy involves abstaining even from thoughts of objects of desire through a firm control of one’s mind, as well as through a controlled diet and sleep…”, which circles back to pratyahara - “when the mind is under control, says Vyāsa, the senses are automatically under control; they do not need to be restrained separately.” (Sutra 11.54).
My husband and I fight constantly about the volume and duration of TV in our house. After a day of catering to people at work, phone and email notifications, I like to choose silence in the afternoons to come back to myself. He likes to relax with TV. On occasion, I’m guilty of sinking into the couch and zoning out through an entire series, and that’s not always wrong - sometimes it’s restful, but are we numbing? Everyone’s threshold is different, but when I woke up my husband Tuesday night with screams from nightmares, I probably watched too much TV before bed.
I don’t like having a lot of material things and I think I’ve figured out why. Every time I walk into a room, my mind does this little inventory of everything, and obviously it’s taxing the more things there are. Graphic TV, overindulgent food, and clutter are triggers for me that I’m in sensory overload, signaling a need to tap into my brahmacarya practice. It’s the little things that cue to your body, to your mind, and if you’re practicing pratyahara, you can hopefully hear those cues, and lean into them.
If you recall from last week, I reflected on Sutra I.29, which encourages meditation to cultivate “freedom from all disturbances.” This is because:
Asking ourselves why we are mindlessly doing something is the first step. Sometimes I’m not sure why; sometimes I tell myself it’s good for me (intense exercise), but it’s done out of the wrong intention (body image meltdown). Sometimes I absolutely know that a margarita is unhealthy but I drink it to enjoy the experience and celebrate with friends, and I am OK with that, as long as it’s not done from a place of self-hate or deadness. Finding the pause is challenging, but it unlocks so much freedom. Freedom to grow, freedom to be ourselves, freedom to see others as magical human beings.
And as timely as ever, a reminder from my favorite,
A man is rich in proportion to the things he can afford to let alone - Thoreau
I encourage you to find quiet time to be with yourself. Assess your values - maybe even write them down. Do you like spending time with you? Find ways to get to know who you are; in my experience, play (e.g., movement, creativity, exploration) helps me feel most like myself.
Until my next existential crisis, XO - Chan
Bryant, E. 2009. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary. New York: North Point Press.