Today I didn’t do my usual yoga practice in morning, and I felt it. I was easily irritated at an incident that happened, but quickly recovered. Acknowledging your feelings is something that I plan on embracing as I move through this journey of self discovery. A lot of times I think I come across as angry when my anxiety kicks in. That is definitely not a good look. Perhaps I am being too critical of myself. Does this critical view of self actually lies in me comparing myself to an ideal held in my head about what I should look like, and how I should conduct myself? I do know that I want to work on having better balance while accepting myself for who I am. To make this happen, this week I will focus on santosha.
What is Santosha?
Santosha is one of the self restraints in yoga that addresses having complete contentment. Santosha is generally considered to be both an attitude and a state of deep inner peace. It is believed that when one has freed from cravings and desires they are practicing Santosha. Additionally, when you are free from such influences, you are also free to pursue their own calling without fear or manipulation. This sounds divine! Some tips on achieving this includes:
- Ditching assumptions
- We sometimes assume that people did something to us, and we know their intent for doing it. We may also look at others lives and think that they have it better or easier than us. These assumptions leave us discontent in what we have
- For myself I definitely need to work on the first part. If something doesn’t go the way that I want it to go, and someone else had a part in it, I tend to go with maybe they had ill intent from the beginning. Obviously, this isn’t always that case, but I can recall one too many times that this has been the case for me in regards to my thinking.
- Letting go of what you can’t control
- If I were to go to an interview and were asked to give an area for improvement, this would probably be one of my top answers. I spend a lot of time planning and thinking about different scenarios of how a situation can play out. In the past I have actually abandoned projects or ideas because I couldn’t come up with a way that it could be successful.
- Clearly this is not a great way to move through life. What I really need to do to work on this is be open to accept the outcome of all of my efforts. If I put my best foot forward, then what comes out of it will need to be accepted.
- Focusing on the good
- It is easy to be positive when things are going great, but do you focus on the good when things aren’t going exactly as planned? I have my moments. Most days I am pretty positive and upbeat about the happenings. The fact that I decided to blog from behind the Corona line (teehee) is proof that I tried to find the positive in the situation.
- I do believe that we can welcome/attract positive outcomes into our lives when we focus on the positive. It feels great when all of the positive energy that I have put out is returned. What is even better is when I am so focused on the positive that the negative/not so pleasant moments happen I am way too entertained to even notice.
What’s with the Clothes Pins?
As you have seen, I chose clothes pins as the image for today’s blog. Yesterday I put up a clothes line to hand my freshly washed reusable “paper” towels from. While I was putting up the line, the thought crossed my mind, are you doing too much too soon? I mean will it really come down to hand washing, and hanging clothes from a line? These are Rona times, so anything is possible I suppose.
Not only did I put up an entire clothes line, I made the actual reusable paper towels. The positive is that I already had everything I needed at home. There was no need to venture out anywhere to buy a few supplies to make this happens. Who is laughing at my hoarder tendencies now? 😂☺️It became quite apparent today that we (my family) use way too many paper towels. We are not running short by any stretch of the imagination, but again how long will we be staying at home? Even if they were to say the Coronavirus has gone away, doing things that help use less, and creates less garbage is still a win.
I have placed a container of bleach water near the kitchen sink where used towels are thrown. First think in the morning, I wash them out, and hang them on the line to dry. In the California sun, we are able to pick them in within an hour or so. I hope that others will be inspired to do more with what they have at home. Maybe this break is what the Earth needed to start healing.
Let me know what you are planning on working on this week. Let’s hold each other accountable to our goals.
Namaste
~Ony
