Cracking a smile
ahamkāra: the part of your consciousness (chitta) that is self-aware and deals with wants and desires. It is also referred to as the ego.
One way to understand and manage the ahamkāra is to practice vairāgya. Vairāgya is often defined as detachment, which implies a breaking away from or renouncing of needs and desires. However, a better way to think of it might be nonattachment—the idea of not clinging to things or emotions. Instead of rejecting or turning away from the outside world, you are not letting yourself get distracted or upset by it.
Click here to read more from the original source.
Working with resistance in yoga is one of the greatest gifts of the physical practice. Whereas the mind can rather subtly convince us that our resistance is gone, our physical rigidity is more difficult to deny. In this way our asana practice can be seen as a powerful tool in our spiritual development - the means for cultivating a more supple outlook and maturity not only in our bodies, but also in our thoughts, actions and words.
The other day I took a Nia class with a group of folks going through Recess' Health Immersion Program. It brought up, for me, this concept of ego clinging and its antidote, non-attachment. I wrote this note to some of the participants in the class:
A relatively new concept in the world of mainstream health is one of resilience. It looks a lot like Recess’ 6 steps (or, they look like it?). It's taking small steps to create a lifestyle that helps us through the inevitable peaks and valleys of life without giving up something central - our vitality and wellbeing.
Being well certainly doesn't mean being happy all of the time. Neither does it mean being Debbie Downer and dead serious or cynical all of the time. Today's Nia class really made me laugh – for a lot of different reasons. In some moments I wondered what might have been going on for some of you. Let me share why.
4 years ago I would not have been caught dead chopping my hands and shouting "HAH!" on the exhale. I've always been kind of a spaz, but stuff like saying "ohm" in yoga, or shouting on an exhale in martial arts just seemed a little too wacky for me. I felt totally silly. Truth be told, though, I also noticed that a lot of my thoughts during the course of a day were spent silently criticizing others in subtle ways for acting against the grain of what I felt was normal, cool, or otherwise acceptable.
I usually never verbalized this stuff and I knew it was silly of me, but the hard part was that when I really started looking in to it I actually spent a lot of time criticizing myself that way, too.
Honestly, it was a pretty exhausting posture to maintain. You’ve probably noticed that I talk a lot. Well, during the course of any given day there were so many opportunities to criticize myself for something stupid I said, an embarrassing gaff I made, a mistake in my work, a goofy face I made during an inappropriate moment in the conversation, a time when I wasn’t keeping up with my friends or colleagues, a time when I was excelling and then I acted like an arrogant jerk. You know this list. It goes on and on and on and on. Even today I still marvel. I mean, seriously, it’s a wonder that I ever got anything done with the amount of effort I spent constantly analyzing my every move post-facto and then berating myself for it!
So then I started a business. That was fun. I mean I’d been someone else’s hotshot hired gun for years. Even with my non-stop list of flaws, I still thought I was pretty hot stuff. Now, every day of my life presented me with rather glaring examples of how I was a TOTAL nincompoop. If your ego EVER needs a beat down I suggest you start a business. It’s like the most expensive therapy you will ever buy and with no positive affirmations. The great part, though, was that I didn’t have even a shred of energy or time anymore to devote to that cynical, nasty voice in my head that was always on my case.
Every time it would start in “Oh my god, that was sooooo stupid,” I would just have to shrug my shoulders and say “Oh well. It’s done. I guess I just have to do better next time.” That conversation with myself happened over and over and over and still happens today. Now though, I find that the voice doesn’t try as hard to convince me of all the ways that I don’t measure up because usually I only listen for a second before getting back to the business of whatever is in front of me. Ok, so resilience, and Nia and screaming “hah.”
Look. I will be honest. That stuff can still feel a little silly to me. But now I see it as just another opportunity to practice something that I need to survive in this world – cultivating a sense of humor about myself. Even if I feel completely weird and awkward, just shrugging my shoulders at it and letting it go is such good practice for the times I am really going to need it. You know, like when someone I like rejects me, or when I screw up at work. Instead of making matters worse by beating myself with that moment, spending a lot of time with it, identifying with it, I’m practicing the art of letting it go and moving on.
So I laughed a lot today because I would catch myself going into a mini-tailspin in my head about how I didn't want to do something. It was funny, I mean funny that I was making a commotion over a little arm swinging and shouting? So I would just laugh at myself and keep swinging my arms and shouting, or not, but either way I wasn't going to expend a lot of energy talking to myself about it.
Neurologically speaking, doing something that makes you feel silly in a safe place where people AREN’T judging you and all you have to do is wrestle with your own judgment is a great way to practice the pretty ambiguous, new agey sounding concept of “letting go.” I mean, the stakes are pretty low AND you are getting in good shape! Practicing any skill, means we’ll be better prepared to focus on what needs to get done when the next little (or big) bump in the road inevitably comes.
I love that you guys are so supportive and open to trying new things. That is what makes this program so darned fun for me. So please hear that I am not trying to say that you HAVE to necessarily embrace shouting at walls as you maniacally chop your hands in the air. And if you do embrace that, that’s cool too! What I am saying is that everything – even a health immersion program – gives us opportunities to practice skills we need to make it in life.
Even if some of the modalities in camp are not particularly and may never be for you, I encourage you to challenge yourself to come and to take home the one thing that can be helpful to you in your life. It might not even be physical, but many of the challenges we face in this modern world are not.
One way to understand and manage the ahamkāra is to practice vairāgya. Vairāgya is often defined as detachment, which implies a breaking away from or renouncing of needs and desires. However, a better way to think of it might be nonattachment—the idea of not clinging to things or emotions. Instead of rejecting or turning away from the outside world, you are not letting yourself get distracted or upset by it.
Click here to read more from the original source.
Working with resistance in yoga is one of the greatest gifts of the physical practice. Whereas the mind can rather subtly convince us that our resistance is gone, our physical rigidity is more difficult to deny. In this way our asana practice can be seen as a powerful tool in our spiritual development - the means for cultivating a more supple outlook and maturity not only in our bodies, but also in our thoughts, actions and words.
The other day I took a Nia class with a group of folks going through Recess' Health Immersion Program. It brought up, for me, this concept of ego clinging and its antidote, non-attachment. I wrote this note to some of the participants in the class:
A relatively new concept in the world of mainstream health is one of resilience. It looks a lot like Recess’ 6 steps (or, they look like it?). It's taking small steps to create a lifestyle that helps us through the inevitable peaks and valleys of life without giving up something central - our vitality and wellbeing.
Being well certainly doesn't mean being happy all of the time. Neither does it mean being Debbie Downer and dead serious or cynical all of the time. Today's Nia class really made me laugh – for a lot of different reasons. In some moments I wondered what might have been going on for some of you. Let me share why.
4 years ago I would not have been caught dead chopping my hands and shouting "HAH!" on the exhale. I've always been kind of a spaz, but stuff like saying "ohm" in yoga, or shouting on an exhale in martial arts just seemed a little too wacky for me. I felt totally silly. Truth be told, though, I also noticed that a lot of my thoughts during the course of a day were spent silently criticizing others in subtle ways for acting against the grain of what I felt was normal, cool, or otherwise acceptable.
I usually never verbalized this stuff and I knew it was silly of me, but the hard part was that when I really started looking in to it I actually spent a lot of time criticizing myself that way, too.
Honestly, it was a pretty exhausting posture to maintain. You’ve probably noticed that I talk a lot. Well, during the course of any given day there were so many opportunities to criticize myself for something stupid I said, an embarrassing gaff I made, a mistake in my work, a goofy face I made during an inappropriate moment in the conversation, a time when I wasn’t keeping up with my friends or colleagues, a time when I was excelling and then I acted like an arrogant jerk. You know this list. It goes on and on and on and on. Even today I still marvel. I mean, seriously, it’s a wonder that I ever got anything done with the amount of effort I spent constantly analyzing my every move post-facto and then berating myself for it!
So then I started a business. That was fun. I mean I’d been someone else’s hotshot hired gun for years. Even with my non-stop list of flaws, I still thought I was pretty hot stuff. Now, every day of my life presented me with rather glaring examples of how I was a TOTAL nincompoop. If your ego EVER needs a beat down I suggest you start a business. It’s like the most expensive therapy you will ever buy and with no positive affirmations. The great part, though, was that I didn’t have even a shred of energy or time anymore to devote to that cynical, nasty voice in my head that was always on my case.
Every time it would start in “Oh my god, that was sooooo stupid,” I would just have to shrug my shoulders and say “Oh well. It’s done. I guess I just have to do better next time.” That conversation with myself happened over and over and over and still happens today. Now though, I find that the voice doesn’t try as hard to convince me of all the ways that I don’t measure up because usually I only listen for a second before getting back to the business of whatever is in front of me. Ok, so resilience, and Nia and screaming “hah.”
Look. I will be honest. That stuff can still feel a little silly to me. But now I see it as just another opportunity to practice something that I need to survive in this world – cultivating a sense of humor about myself. Even if I feel completely weird and awkward, just shrugging my shoulders at it and letting it go is such good practice for the times I am really going to need it. You know, like when someone I like rejects me, or when I screw up at work. Instead of making matters worse by beating myself with that moment, spending a lot of time with it, identifying with it, I’m practicing the art of letting it go and moving on.
So I laughed a lot today because I would catch myself going into a mini-tailspin in my head about how I didn't want to do something. It was funny, I mean funny that I was making a commotion over a little arm swinging and shouting? So I would just laugh at myself and keep swinging my arms and shouting, or not, but either way I wasn't going to expend a lot of energy talking to myself about it.
Neurologically speaking, doing something that makes you feel silly in a safe place where people AREN’T judging you and all you have to do is wrestle with your own judgment is a great way to practice the pretty ambiguous, new agey sounding concept of “letting go.” I mean, the stakes are pretty low AND you are getting in good shape! Practicing any skill, means we’ll be better prepared to focus on what needs to get done when the next little (or big) bump in the road inevitably comes.
I love that you guys are so supportive and open to trying new things. That is what makes this program so darned fun for me. So please hear that I am not trying to say that you HAVE to necessarily embrace shouting at walls as you maniacally chop your hands in the air. And if you do embrace that, that’s cool too! What I am saying is that everything – even a health immersion program – gives us opportunities to practice skills we need to make it in life.
Even if some of the modalities in camp are not particularly and may never be for you, I encourage you to challenge yourself to come and to take home the one thing that can be helpful to you in your life. It might not even be physical, but many of the challenges we face in this modern world are not.
Labels: ego clinging, nia, resistance
posted by Recess at
1:11 PM
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