Are you fully content with yourself and with your life?
Chances are, you answered, ‘No.’ For some of us, the word content describes fleeting moments in our life, for others the experience of feeling content seems like something fairy tales are made of, and still for others, the reaction might be, “I have no idea what that even means.” The positive is that to create a more content mind just takes practice. It is accessible to everyone!
In traditional yoga, Santosha, which is a Niyama or one of the 10 ethical practices in yoga, means finding complete or total contentment, acceptance or satisfaction. What does this mean to be completely content?
To answer this, let me first ask you: What is keeping you from being in complete contentment? Take a moment and sit with this question and write down what comes up for you. What in your life limits you from experiencing this. Maybe how you talk to yourself, beliefs, fears and other emotions.
Santosha is a Niyama, part of the eightfold yoga path laid out in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, one of the prominent texts of Yoga. Niyamas are part of the ‘Dos’ in the ethical principles or observances on this yoga path. The ethical practices lay out ten ways to live life in order to connect to our True Nature, a loving state of being.
In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali sums up the way to connect and know our True Nature is through controlling the fluctuations of the mind (YS 1.2). It makes sense that being able to control mind fluctuations that typically come from suffering that we experience in our minds due to limiting thoughts and beliefs will lead to feeling more content in ourselves and life.
Looking at the list you made about what is keeping you from feeling completely content, most likely the list is about beliefs and thoughts that stand in the way, create self-doubt, make you feel less than or unworthy, and stifle you from authentically being you. Don’t worry…you are not alone in this! Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras is around 2000 years old and is still remarkably relevant today. At the core, we humans are still struggling with the same mind fluctuations that send us into suffering.
PRACTICING SANTOSHA
So, what to do? Since we are talking about contentment, let’s start there! The answer lies first and foremost in practice, practice, practice. Our minds have been practicing our limiting, self-defeating story for decades and it’s time to start examining that story, questioning it and consciously deciding on a story that is going to support you better in living a more content life.
Here are a few, concrete ways to practice Santosha in your life:
1. Start a journal that is solely to get to know your current story. Write in it regularly. Reflect on emotional reactions that you had during that day. Write down the facts of what happened, the emotions that came up for you, where you felt it in your body, and the thoughts that came up. Trust me, if you had an emotional reaction, all of these elements are present. It may take time to start to separate out each of these parts. It’s all good! Remember, this is a practice. Over time, notice the pattern of thoughts that come up the most. You get to start to decide if you want to keep going with that pattern or create a new belief that serves you better.
2. Practice ‘being enough.’ Anytime there is an urge to prove yourself or defend yourself or “I have to”, try just ‘being enough.’ It can be helpful to repeat to yourself, ‘I am enough,’ and see what happens. It resistance comes up, no problem! Lean into so you can understand where it’s coming from. You may learn about an area of your life you may need to attend to so that you can ‘be enough.’
3. Use situations that come up, where you feel anything but content…maybe feeling upset, jealous, resentful, fearful, as opportunities to practice being content. Asking yourself, “what would it take to feel content with this right now?” See what comes up and try it. It may even be the practice of ‘doing the opposite’ of what your initial reaction was in that situation.
4.To me, the statement, “I’m okay as I am,” represents contentment. Just simply starting to repeat this each day, throughout the day and during challenging times, may help you start to realize that no matter what life throws our way, we really are still okay as we are. This is the foundational belief of Yoga – that who we truly are is a loving, compassionate being and life’s purpose is to unite with this True Self, which is always there.
LOOKING IN THE RIGHT PLACE IS IMPORTANT
I’ll end by paraphrasing a story I was just reminded of recently by my teacher. There was a man who happened along and saw his friend, in the hours of dusk, looking for his house key he had dropped. This man joined his friend in the search for a bit, until the friend remarked he dropped it, “over there,” about 20 feet away. The man asked, “why are we searching here then.” His friend answered, “because the light is better here. It’s completely dark over there.”
We all are searching for Santosha outside of ourselves. Thinking if we only had this house, that job, a spouse, the right look…THEN we’d be content, only it never happens. This is because contentment is a state of being that happens from within. So let’s start searching inward to let go of what’s happening inside us that is keeping us from complete contentment.