A note before I begin: I nearly always write my posts the night before they go up. Today I am especially grateful for doing so as I woke with a nauseous migraine, something I’ve suffered with since I was about 13 years old. So herewith today’s post. I will be in a darkened room with an ice pack. To cheer me though I did get an email this morning letting me know I was on a new list “100 Incredible Yoga Teachers Who Blog”. I’m there under therapeutic yoga, which is rather a compliment as I never particularly see this blog as specialising. Anyway, back to bed with me….
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So Lent officially finished on Sunday. Did those of you with Lenten resolutions see them through?
You may remember I decided to spend the 40 days of Lent working on Ahimsa and now is the time to look back on what that meant to me.
Ahimsa, the first of the Yamas or Moral Restraints in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras is often translated as non-violence.
Being firmly grounded in non-violence creates
an atmosphere in which others can let go of their hostility.
Yoga Sutra 2:35
Rather than looking at is as a lack of violence, I prefer to see Ahimsa as a cultivation of loving kindness towards all beings. Once we start to focus on loving kindness we often realise how many of our thoughts are unloving and unkind. I am often seen to get increasingly impatient in the supermarket queue behind that old lady who just will not stop talking to the cashier and get on with packing her bags, and I am afraid to say there has been more than one incident of flipping the bird at a passing motorist who cuts me up when I’m on my bike. By being mindful of these things, however, and noticing when they are happening I can take a breath, open my heart…..and react in a different way. Let it go. Loving kindness.
(Don’t for a minute think this is easy for me. It just isn’t. But like so much in life, it’s all about baby steps.)
As Darren Main says in his book Yoga and the Path of the Urban Mystic:-
By simultaneously refraining from violent acts and looking at the unconscious thought patterns that inspire them, we become more peaceful, and our natural reaction to adversity will be peace rather than attack. (page 81).
Ultimately though, to make this search for Ahimsa more personal to me, I wanted to work especially on loving kindness towards myself. Too often we get so caught up in our work, our families, the chores, the needs and wants of others, we forget about ourselves, our own wellbeing. For the last 40 days then I have taken some time out each week for me, to do things I want to do — write, read, watch rubbish TV, take a nap, go to a yoga class.
I truly believe that if we don’t take care of ourselves, our ability to take care of others diminishes. By looking after myself I am surprised by how much more compassion I have towards those around me.
Today’s question, dear readers, how to you look after yourselves?
