One of the great myths of life is what we’ve been told is ‘Truth.’ What I mean by this is that all of us are born into this world, into a family and social context. Each of us is taught how to be in this world according to the people and social environment that are in our life from the time we are born. There are 8 billion people on this planet now, plus all those that came before. So, there are billions of ways to actually be in this world. Only most of us are living confined to stories on how we “should” be and what others want us to be instead of exploring and living our unique way of being. The great myth of life is we mistake the story as truth.

WHAT IS TRUTH?

Truth does not change. All the ways that we define ourselves change. From the description of our bodies, to the thoughts and emotions from our minds, to the beliefs we hold about the world. All of this changes, so it is not truly the essence of ‘Who I Am.’

The wonderful, amazing part of all this is that we have a choice. All of us have a choice that we can start utilizing at any point when we are ready. That choice is either to continue to stay within the box of what we’ve been taught. Or, start to examine the box and choose what to hold onto and what to let go of. This is how to create an empowered life by practicing choice.

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

One of the principles of Traditional Yoga is ‘Take Responsibility.’ Traditional Yoga is a path of spirituality with the goal of Self-Realization – realizing the truth of you.  In order to do this, you have to – no negotiations here – take responsibility for your reactions. It’s your choice. Continue to blame and/or over personalize life experiences and remain in misery. Or, start to get curious about your reactions and own your part to make changes.

After my first Yoga Teacher Training in 2012, my mantra and focus for that first year was “I’m 100% Responsible For My Life.” By focusing on this statement, I started to see all the ways I was blaming my misery on others. This was rendering me powerless to make changes. By seeing this, I started to ask myself where the reaction was coming from. Over and over and over.

This practice led me to see patterns of deep rooted fears that were ‘running my show’ so to speak.  These fears were underneath my reactions and causing drama and havoc where there really wasn’t any.  Seeing those patterns, I got to choose how I wanted to meet them. Do I keep doing what I’ve been doing or is there another way I want to respond that feels more honest, genuine, and true to myself?

SELF-CLEANING

By making a choice to start taking responsibility, everything changed. And it keeps changing. Because, you see, making a choice is part of a long process. There’s not a ‘quick fix’ or ‘silver bullet’ that all the sudden ‘fixes’ things. In fact, there’s nothing to fix. The process of understanding yourself more, learning to respond to the world with more ease and compassion, and becoming more loving towards yourself and others is already available. It’s just that what you’ve been taught, by others who meant well and were also ignorant, keeps you away from yourself. 

It’s actually a cleansing process. A metaphor that is used often in Traditional Yoga scriptures is a dirty mirror.  Where we are at is like looking into a dirty mirror. The reflection comes through grime, dirt, and scratches on the mirror and we mistake this as ‘Who I Am.’ But, if you lean closer into the mirror and run your finger across it, you notice there’s dirt. So, you get out the glass cleaner and start to wipe off the mirror.

That choice to own your reactions is cleaning your own mirror. Over time, you start to see more and more the truth of ‘Who I am.’  

‘I CAN’T’

Sitting on an airplane, heading back home after a week with my Yoga teacher, I started to think, “Who’s saying ‘I can’t’?” My teacher had invited me a second time to join the next level of Yoga teacher training and my reaction was ‘I can’t.’  “There’s no way I can get that kind of time off work. I don’t think I can afford it. What will my partner say…he’s going to be unsupportive.”

Says who???

By exploring this reaction, I realized I was the only one saying these things because I hadn’t talked to my boss, found out the cost of the training and flight to India, or spoke with my partner.  

I was the only one saying, ‘I can’t.’  

Can you relate? When have you stopped yourself from doing something, whether as big as questioning why you’re so unhappy or as small as why you didn’t just reach out to your friend you just thought of? 

Then, how long afterwards did you keep replaying that situation over and over feeling regret, resentment, anger, and many other challenging emotions?

YOUR CHOICE

By making that choice to challenge my reaction, I ended up attending that next Yoga teacher training because no one else was saying ‘you can’t.’ That training led to the creation of Samya Yoga Healing and where I’m at today, over a decade later.

It’s all in the choices we make to keep staying where we are at in the reaction or start taking responsibility to own how we are going to respond to life.

Namaste.

 

Are you done saying ‘I can’t’ and ready to start taking responsibility for your life…but not quite sure where to start? If you are drawn to Yoga and want to learn more about how the path of Traditional Yoga might help you to find your way out of feeling overwhelmed, lost or stuck, I might be able to help. Feel free to reach out if you’d like to see if working together is a good fit.