Flo told a joke that made me giggle the other day. In fact she won a yoga mat for telling this joke.

Why couldn’t the yogi vaccum his carpet?
Because he lost all his attachments!

It brings up visions of a little Indian man sitting in lotus smiling serenely whilst surrounded by pieces of broken vacuum cleaner!

Joking aside, letting go of attachment is a strange thing. What does it even mean? I guess it’s something different to everybody. To me attachments are more emotional than physical. Yes, I have physical attachment in terms of non-necessary items such as a TV, PS3, my beloved laptop (although I’d argue that last was necessary!!), but I’m not so emotionally attached to them as to be unhealthy I don’t think. I just like having them. No, to me emotional attachment to people places and objects of apparently no value are far more difficult to get rid of.

I have a friend who has a broken tambourine. You can’t play it, it’s not even pretty to look at, but she cannot give it up. It reminds her of a time past, a time of joy. Some would say we shouldn’t need to hold onto that physical object to remember the time of joy. Others would go further and say that we should only live in the right now and therefore we do not need to remember past joys but instead focus on the present joy within. As for me, well my friend knows her relationship with her tambourine is bizarre and she works hard towards present joy. Maybe being aware of our attachments and treating them with mindfulness is all we need.

I have been working through a particular attachment myself recently – an attachment to my chiropractor. My old chiropractor Zane changed my life. For any new readers I have a rather rare form of congenital upper thoracic scoliosis which for many reasons was not diagnosed until adulthood. Yoga does it wonders, Zane worked miracles. When I moved to Cambridge I had to leave Zane behind. I have recently begun to see another wonderful chiropractor here called Jasper. He is very good, very understanding. But he’s not Zane.

I have to let go of that attachment though if I want to move forward fully into this new phase of my life. I have to appreciate Zane for what he was and where he took me. And now I have to step forward on my own.

Pratyahara is one of Patanjali’s 8 limbs of yoga. The idea of sense withdrawal, looking inwards. We spend so much time looking out, filling our senses but without some inward direction are we just projecting our thoughts and emotions onto the outside world unnecessarily?

Human beings have a definite tendency to look out on the world as the source of their unhappiness, their dis-ease, their discontent. We spend time searching outside ourselves for contentment. If only I had a better job/more money/the perfect partner then I would be happy. And then we get those things and realise still, something is missing. Looking for happiness in external things is akin to “planting an apple seed and hoping to see a banana tree grow”1.

In yoga we stand all this on its head. If we believe all suffering is about perspective and it therefore originates in the mind then it is the mind that needs to be changed. And to do this we need to bring the awareness inwards. Pratyahara.

Sensory withdrawal is not easy and I don’t want to make this post any longer than is necessary. It involves reigning in ego and judgement. It involves letting go of what the ego tells us is “bad” and “good”. It is about realising that how we see things is only our perspective and not truth. And I learned a very important lesson in this on a personal level recently.

How do we approach Pratyahara in our modern world, surrounded as we are by sensory stimulus? One way that has been springing to my mind recently is occasional technological fasting. A weekend perhaps without computer, phone, iPod. I think a huge amount of insight and creativity can come up out of that. There is nothing wrong per se in sensory experience. I love music, the internet, watching Australian soap operas (well I’m only human!), but I also want to be sure I make time to not be surrounded by these things. To work out who I am.

Some people have said to me that Pratyahara is like closing a door. Shutting out the world around me. Ignoring, or even ignorance. But I see it more like a door opening. I feel if I take the time to withdraw from the things that cause my mind to give me pain and examine the root of that pain I am able to cope with the world around me, or my perception of the world around me with heightened insight and hopefully (eventually) a little more patience and mindfulness.

1 from Darren Main’s “Yoga and the Path of the Urban Mystic”

This post was inspired by the lovely Nadine Fawell.

I have been for many years a great believer in The Middle Way. Balance. In terms of yoga practice, to feel as if you are working on all levels but not to feel as though there is any strain. This is my own version of Ch2v46 of Pantanjali’s Yoga Sutras, about finding steadiness and softness at the same time I guess.

In terms of life, I’m not a fan of extremes or fanaticism, I always find that getting too extreme about a belief can lead you all the way out the other side. I try to live a good life, a kind life. But at the same time I’m only human. I try to eat a vegan diet but when I wanted an egg salad sandwich yesterday I had one. I believe in women’s rights, but not to the point where we begin deny men rights.

But sometimes when it comes to my own emotions I find balance very hard to maintain. I beat myself up over the tiniest thing. I obsess over constructive criticism. I will try so hard to be kind that I let people walk all over me.

I constantly need to remind myself about balance. Just as I constantly need to remind myself that all that really matters is right now. This moment.

And all of this raises the question – do we try to hard to be “good yogis” whatever that means? Do we put too much pressure on ourselves to reach some sort of unacheivable perfection? Is our pursuit of happiness in fact making us unhappy?

Sometimes I have to remind myself that it is OK to break the rules sometimes. After all, I set the damn rules to begin with!