Tag: Yoga

On self-responsibility and the climate change

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A concept in the yoga practice that I find most appealing is self-responsibility.  In order to improve our well-being, we need to stop pointing our finger at the world and take a look at what is happening inside us. The fact that life is tough at times is not denied, but precisely because life can be tough because life is unpredictable, we need to learn to stand our ground and do our best through storms.

I am a mum and a teacher, and I have been reflecting a lot about the youth movement that is going on to save the environment. I think it is great that a young girl has taken the initiative to bring awareness among children and adolescents about the challenges our natural environment is facing because of years and years of unconscious use and misuse of resources and uncontrolled development of cities and industry.

What worries me, is kids and adolescents learning to point their fingers by blindly going out on the streets, especially in countries like Norway without even knowing who the ‘bad guy’ is.

I know many countries in the world need to put the conservation of the environment higher in their priority list, I know the Norwegian government could do much better than they already do. I think marching and protesting is good, but I don’t think it is good enough.

As a teacher, I think that I can support students striking and going out on the streets to protest only if they are knowledgeable, and see the whole picture. They need to set this movement in context and know exactly what they are asking for. I cannot accept empty words like “We are marching for the environment”. How does the environment benefit from my students and my kids skipping school and going out on the streets and yell words they don’t even understand?

Consumerism is a known word in rich countries like Norway. Almost everybody nowadays has to have a certain amount of things. As a mum, I am often trying to find the right balance between educating conscious kids by reflecting on what they want and what they actually need, and not raising super alternative kids that don’t fit in. I have heard so many times parents say they just have to give in because everybody has this or has that. I admire those parents that don’t give in. I have some students in middle school that don’t have a smartphone, and even though I know they do think it sucks, they still have friends and live a meaningful life. The smartphone is just an example, but maybe we can spend more time with our kids reflecting before buying.

We adults get carried away too. We want the house, and the cabin (and maybe even two cabins), and the car(s), and the boat, the trips to faraway places at least twice a year, the clothes, the full equipment for every little hobby we start, etc, etc. Maybe we too need to reflect on how much we want and how much we actually need.

Going back to the idea of self-responsibility, yes, let’s demand from our authorities to have better policies to protect the environment, but in addition to going out there and point our fingers, let’s take a close look at our lifestyle and start making some changes. Let’s get a bit uncomfortable, eat less (or no) meat, buy less, teach our children to need less. Look at what we buy, where it comes from and investigate the impact its production has on the environment. Take our family out to nature and teach them to respect it.

Let’s allow this youth movement to open our eyes to what we do and reflect on the changes we can make to contribute to save the environment. Don’t allow this movement to become another way to escape from our responsibility.

Honestly confused

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So, how honest can one be on a blog that potentially all the people that I interact with can read? One thing that I decided from the first minute when I started writing was that this was going to be about myself. Yoga, is the path of taking self-responsibility. It is practically a waste of energy and time when we’re struggling to point our fingers outside.

I have been two days home from work, sick. I have to be honest, I consider myself as a strong and tough person, so, if I had tried, I could have pushed myself to go to work. I wasn’t that sick. But I just didn’t have the energy to push myself.

Spending two days at home alone have made me realize how tired I am. I am tired of pushig myself through the day. I am confused because I honestly don’t know how much is enough. I don’t know where the self-care stops and the selfishness starts. I don’t know where the society is being unrealistic with its expectations towards a mother, a teacher, a friend, a daughter, a daughter-in-law, a woman, and where I am right to say “Stop! Stop! This is not what I want!”

My yoga practice tells me to be self-responsible. My yoga practice tells me to give without expecting anything in return. I want to believe in this, but what happens when I get so tired that I can’t go to work? I am very confused right now.

I think this starts when we are kids, we are told what we should do, what we should think how we should feel and we loose contact with ourselves. This makes me think about how I am raising my kids and pushing my students. I push my kids to do this and do that, to be “balanced”  by going to school and doing their best, by having after school activities, by this and that. But how much am I listening to them? I often ask myself this question. And it is difficult because as a child of the 70s and a teacher, I have been believing that children and adolescents don’t know what is best for them…is this ture?

I push my students to do their best in my subjects. I expect the best from them. But the rest of the world is also expecting things from them. And what about what they want to do?

I am calm in my confusion. I think this confusion is good. I think some confusion is good to sometimes check the compass and see if we need to adjust our course. But I need to get better contact with the inner compass because the outer compass is too confusing at times…

Human interactions

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“The reality comes into being through interaction” Emilie Levine 2018

I recently watched a TED talk with Emilie Levine called “How I made friends with reality”. This talk is beautiful in many ways, but this quote moved me the most.

I reflect often about human interactions. I observe how important they are for us, and how difficult they can be at times. I must confess that I am not very good at them in general. I expect too much from the people that are close to me, I am bad at small talk, and patience hasn’t been my strongest skill.

Ever since I was in high school, I have been quite reserved socially. I am friendly, and I actually like to interact with people, but I don’t like to come too close because I know I often end up making a mess. I can maybe say that I don’t trust myself much when it comes to human interactions. I have few close friends, and those that I have, I am so grateful for because I know that they have taken the time to know me, accept and understand my weirdness.

I also work as a teacher, so I am in constant contact with people. My students and my colleagues. As a teacher, I have an idea of what my role is, and of course, everyday, this idea is challenged by my students. It is getting better, but I also feel I use a lot of energy avoiding getting into negative situations with my students.

I can honestly say that part of my dedication in the study and practice of yoga is with the intention of improving my way to interact with others because it came to a point where I understood that the change needed to come from me. I have spent too much energy being frustrated, sad, angry and then regretting because of the gap between my perception of things and reality.

I liked this quote particularly good because I feel that it is so true. We create our reality by interacting with the world around us, not only with other humans but with everything that surrounds us. This is a powerful quote because it means that we can always choose what kind of reality we want to create by interacting with others.

It is not always that easy because most of us are used to the idea that we need to get something in return for what we give. When we have the impression that we only give, we get frustrated or loose interest.

In Spanish we have a say cada cabeza es un mundo: “Every head is a world” or “There is a whole world in each head”, and I believe this is true. What if we keep this in mind when we interact with others? We don’t know what kind of impressions they have in their minds, we don’t know what their expectations are, nor do we know how they perceive the world.

One of the most known and general definitions of yoga is that it is a science for self-liberation. In addition different traditions can have different definitions. I recently read a definition that I think is very nice to apply in our interactions with others: “Yoga is to create space”. I believe this was said in the context of pranayama, but if we think about the basic principles of yoga: detachment and practice, space is an important aspect too.

I have been wondering a lot lately, am I able to live in love? Can I, at every situation, choose to interact from a selfless space? Can I, give space to the people around me to be and at the same time allow myself to be too? I must confess that it seems quite difficult to achieve, but I think it is worth a try. Not only in my close relationships but everywhere. 

If we create reality by interacting with others, wouldn’t we want to create a reality where we all thrive? Are we able to show unconditional understanding, compassion give each other space to grow? Can we meet others with humbleness? Nobody’s perfect, and nobody will ever be perfect in this world, but we need each other.

My daily practice

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The mind spreads like a big blanket throughout the day
Covering all the areas of our life that require our attention
Once a day, morning or evening, I unroll my mat
My mat is my space where I can slowly fold the blanket
My mat is the place where I can get a taste of my inner strength
My mat is the place where I create the space to see
That everything I need is inside me
My mat is the place where I pray to God to give me the courage
To meet the world with the right attitude
Allow me to be brave
Allow me to be kind
Allow me to be curious
Remind me to be and let be

We all live in the practical world where quite a lot is expected from us, both by those around us and mostly by ourselves. We often feel we need to be better, stronger, improve is the mantra we all go around repeating in our heads.

The yoga practice – asana and/or meditation- can be a vacation from this. The yoga practice can be the time of the day where we are more curious than expecting. We observe our body, we observe our breath, and with care and patience, we move for our general well-being. We can strengthen, we can stretch, we can refine, but for the health of the body and mind.

We can learn to be kind to ourselves on the yoga mat, we can learn to see our weaknesses and our strengths. We can practice acceptance of the weaknesses, and patience to refine our strengths.

We can learn to calm our minds, and to connect with our inner love. We can touch the inner peace. With practice, with awareness, and with patience we will little by little take with us small pieces of these states of mind to our practical life. From the yoga mat can all good things grow inside ourselves, and like a tree spreading its branches to give shadow, shelter and its fruits, we will also be able to share in the practical world.

Self-centered

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The other day, I dreamed that someone called me self-centered. I can’t remember how I reacted to it, but it stayed in my mind beause, from time to time, I do ask myself if I am self-centered.  If I play a bit with the idea, I have to say, that yes, I am self-centered. The world around me unfolds itself through the lens of my mind. This lens is tinted with my own perceptions. Thus, every experience is a self-centered experience.

I am also self-centered in my practice of Yoga because I want to improve my interactions with the world around me and the only way I see to achieve this is by directing my vision inwards. I believe that spending my energy on getting to know, accept and refine my thoughts and perceptions is a better investment than trying to change the world to make it fit my expectations.

I also believe that through this inner work, it will become clearer for me how to invest my energy in the world in a more positive and meaningful way instead of blindly engaging in everything with unconscious and sometimes conscious expectation that the world around me will fulfill my deeper needs such as love, peace and happiness.

Through my study of the Yoga philosophy, I have learned that we all have something called svadharma. Svadharma is our individual duty in the world and it is connected to our capabilities. For what I understand, it has an element of service for the benefit of the whole.

The challenge for some of us is to find out what our svadharma is since from birth, we play many different roles in life (i.e. son/daughter, student, friend, boyfriend/girlfriend, employer/employee, etc). An interesting idea to reflect over is that none of these roles can define who we are.  Each role has its own sort of “job description” and we put our own personal touch to it, but if we were to stop playing any of these roles, we would still be who we are. These roles are here to help us realize ourselves as we learn something new at each experience.

Some of us play many roles, some of them by obligation, and there is nothing wrong with that as long as it doesn’t become a struggle for us. But I believe that the thiner we spread ourselves in the practical world, the less we have to give, and evenmore, we might end up loosing ourselves in these roles without knowing who we are and what our capabilities really are.

Therefore, I think I benefit from prioritizing the roles I believe are important, and letting go of those that I can let go of. I want to give my best in my roles and still have energy for myself. So, yes, I am often self-centered but my theory is that at the start of the inner journey we need to let go of a lot that we are not. Such as things we do and roles we have out of habit or social expectations. Then, as we start feeling more confident and comfortable with who we are, the opportunities to engage positively and meaningfully in the world will present themselves to us.

And then, these roles will be played more naturally, with what in Yoga is called “effortless effort”.