Cultivating a calm mind isn’t something that you ‘do.’ It’s a process that happens over time with consistent practice. Practice isn’t isolated to something that you schedule into your day or week. It’s not isolated to a mat or cushion. In fact, cultivating a calm mind happens by changing how you live your daily life. What I mean, is when you broaden your definition of practice to include your daily life, the opportunities for practice are limitless. Traditional Yoga encourages those who are looking for a lasting calm and steady mind to view the entirety of life as practice. Yoga and life are not separate.

USING LIFE EXPERIENCES

Any experience in our lives can be used to understand ourselves better. The more we understand ourselves, the more calming this is to the body and mind. When you are sure of who you are then challenging situations, other people’s behaviors and opinions won’t knock you off balance.

This is called Bhoga to Yoga: Experience to Self-realize. Typically, most people just Bhoga – experience, experience, experience. They never move beyond the experience because they have no idea there’s another way. But we all have the opportunity to use those experiences for a higher purpose.

YOGA AND CELL PHONE BATTERIES

Let’s play around with this notion and take a look at a cell phone.

My cell phone, which is a couple of years old now, doesn’t hold its battery charge like it used to. So, instead of charging it every 2 or 3 days, I have to plug it in every day.  I was curious about some of the things I’ve ‘heard’ about cutting or prolonging cell phone batteries so I went searching for the facts. It made me laugh because cell phone battery ‘wisdom’ is applicable to us humans! (Maybe I need to start ‘cell phone yoga…?!’ 😂) 

 Here’s what I learned from wondering about cell phone battery life that are great reminders in lifestyle modifications to help calm the mind…

The cell phone battery provides the energy the phone needs to operate. The energy our body and mind need to operate comes from food, hydration, exercise, sleep. Yes, we are more complicated than a cell phone that just needs electricity to charge. But, with self-awareness about our energy level and the type of energy we are getting can make a huge difference. We can help our mind and body to sustain a gentle roll of up and down or torture ourselves with sharp spikes of intense ups and downs that take awhile to recover from.

A YOGA PERSPECTIVE

Gunas are the qualities that everything in the material world is made of according to some Yoga philosophy. There are three of them. Tamas is the quality of inertia and darkness. So when our ‘battery charge’ is low or depleted, we move toward inertia. Our body forces us to stop and recharge through sickness, injury, or low moods.

Rajas is the quality of passion and activity. This is when the ‘battery charge’ is kept at 100% all the time or if it’s kept plugged in. Interestingly, in a cell phone battery, over time, this actually depletes the life span of it. For humans, this much stress also is damaging to our health and wellbeing. Aiming for ‘full-charge’ all the time and constant ‘doing’ is harmful.  There is never time to rest and recover.

Finally, there is Sattva which is the quality of purity, wisdom, centeredness, clarity. From what I read, to lengthen cell phone battery life, keeping the charge between 30%-80/90% is best. This makes me think of moderation or the Goldilocks zone – not too much, not too little, but just right. 

BACK TO MIND AND BODY

For human beings, our ‘just right’ isn’t going to be the same for all. There’s not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ prescription. This is why self-awareness and self-understanding are so important. Right now, most of us are Tamas or Rajas dominant. In order to increase our Sattvic quality, it’s going to take practice.

I want to make a couple of things clear. The first is that all parts of us and the world that are subject to change are impacted by the Gunas.  The essence of who we truly are is never changing and thus not impacted by the Gunas.

Second, you can’t get rid of one of the Gunas, say tamas.  All we can do is work on decreasing the hold it has on us and through our actions work in increasing rajas and sattva.  In a garden, weeds are never going to go away. But with consistent pruning on a daily basis, weeds are significantly reduced so what was planted can grow.

YOGA AND LIFE

There are a few behavior patterns I witness in human beings, including myself, in relation to the Gunas and our body/mind energy:

– The Energizer Bunny Effect: This is when a person pushes and strives, ignoring all signs of inertia coming on, until they drop. It’s like seeing the ‘low battery’ message and not doing anything about it until the phone shuts down completely. It takes a lot of energy and time to ‘recharge.’

– ‘It Can’t Wait” Syndrome: The head hits the pillow at night and the person is out. At least for a few hours. Then they wake up with a mind racing about all the things that still need to be done. This person is ‘partially charged’ but struggles to take the time to fully charge as needed. They prioritize life and others above their mental wellbeing. “When ___ gets done, then I’ll ____ for myself is a common thought pattern.

– The Surfing Master: In order to find that ‘just right’ place with our energy level, it takes consistent practice of awareness in our mind-body state. Someone who has mastered surfing has put in a lot of time getting to know the ocean, the tweaks they need to make on their board to ride the wave, and patience to know which wave to catch. 

With all this information and practice, they see the subtle signs that their ‘battery’ is starting to be depleted or that they have been plugged in for too long.  Then they stop and take action to find equilibrium again. They find a more lasting ride on the wave of Sattva because they take responsibility for what they can control in regards to their ‘battery’ charge.

PRACTICES FROM A CELL PHONE BATTERY

Here are some of the practices to use with our cell phones and ourselves:

1. Plug in the phone BEFORE it tells you the battery power is low. 

How often do you find yourself energetically depleted? This can happen from eating too much or not enough. Getting dehydrated. Not sleeping well. Over exercising or under exercising. Stressing or worrying so much that the brain shuts down into fogginess and zoning out. 

Practice checking in with yourself before you make a decision. Ask yourself if taking a certain action is going to help maintain a calm mind or not?

2. Pull the plug around 80-90% to decrease strain on the cell phone battery.

What goes up must come down. Even excitement can cause an unsteady mind, let alone worry that gets our mind going. 

Notice when you’re reaching your tipping point for too much energy with your emotional reaction – positive or negative. Do what you need to do to reground yourself and balance out the rajasic energy.

3. Cell phone batteries can degrade at 35 Celsius and sub-zero temps.

Be kind to yourself!  There will be times when you have to work longer hours or don’t get a good night’s sleep. Listen to what your body and mind are telling you and make adjustments. This might mean you have to tell a friend that you can’t meet them because you need to just rest.

Pushing through and sending our system into extremes definitely won’t support a calm and steady mind state.

BROADEN YOUR YOGA PRACTICE

I encourage you to start using your life as your practice instead of trying to find more time and add more. You don’t have to!

Namaste.

(Cell phone battery facts from PC Magazine: https://www.pcmag.com/news/charging-your-phone-overnight-battery-myths-debunked)

PS. If you’re longing for respite from the cycle of ‘out-of-control’ emotional reactions to cultivate a more calm and peaceful mind, I may be able to help. First, watch the free masterclass to learn more. Second, if all of this resonates with you and you want to learn what it takes to work with me, book a free Clarity Call with me.