Yoga off the mat challenge: week 3 Practicing Sauca

May 30, 2013 by militarywifeyogini 1 Comment

Week 3

Game plan:

It’s Tuesday night, I’ve done some reading on my upcoming week and I have a clearer picture of how it’s going to work. I’ve already discussed the ideas in my previous post. No complaining (add to that gossiping), no negative thoughts towards others, show compassion.

As I mentioned in a previous post, complaining about things to people, and to myself was one focus during this week. I used the challenge discussed on pranaandpie.com

Here’s a quote that I read on prana and pie:

“Things happen objectively. They come with no labels. If traffic didn’t slow your progress it wouldn’t be traffic. If poor drivers didn’t drive poorly, they wouldn’t be fully expressing themselves. Think about it. The point of yoga is to accept life as it is, and by doing so you can shape your future. However, when the present is happening, it’s happening – and we can choose to embrace it or complain about it. Complaining only hurts us and doesn’t change a thing expect our mood.”

I also read about something called sauca off of theyogaroom.com. Sauca basically means cleanliness. In terms of my challenge, I am focusing on mental purity and clarity. In order to cultivate this I will be using my breath on and off my mat, and more specically, off my mat observing thoughts/reactions that come up throughout the week, acknowledging them, but letting them go as well. By letting them go my goal is to find awareness of where these thoughts come from, why do I react this way, and deal with the real issue rather than complain, name call (in my head), or gossip. Also connected with sauca is the purity of our words, this again is connected to complaining and gossip.

Come to think of it my whole challenge has been focused on this limb of yoga: sauca. Cleanliness is such a general word, what this limb of yoga refers to is overall cleanliness, this includes bathing, brushing your teeth … . In terms of my challenge my first week was clean eating, that too is a form of sauca. Since food is meant to nurish the body, I eliminated foods, and beverages that had no purifying effect. The second week was negative thoughts about myself, again a form of sauca since this pollutes the mind. And this week, negative thoughts about the world around me, sauca again since negative thoughts can pollute the environment we live in. How wonderful that I was following a limb of yoga without even realizing it.

Lasater has again helped me focus my challenge, in her book Living Your Yoga, in the chapter compassion.

In this chapter Lasater talks about the restraints in yoga: non-harming, tupruthfullness, non-stealing, chastity and giving rather than greed. In her chapter Lasater focuses on compassion, and while I will use this in my challenge I will add, non-harming as well (kind of goes hand in hand). In the chapter Lasater points out that in order to be compassionate to others, one needs to first be comapssional with him/herself. This is why I chose to look at my thoughts last week and now my perception-attitude/communication with the world.

Day 1 Wednesday

This morning I chose to do my 1 hour moksha yoga sequence that I have in iTunes. It was interesting that I chose this sequence since the instructor’s main theme through out the practice is bringing the peace we find in our posuters with our breath into the world. If breathing is neglected in any yoga posture the body becomes strained, shoulders may lift, muscles tighten, and generally it doesn’t fee very good. The same thing happens when we are stressed or annoyed, when we are in a traffic jam or behind a slow driver, we tense up, we don’t feel good, we feel stress from our muscles to our emotions. Breathing in yoga not only helps you feel the posture better, get a sense of peace, but is also an important lesson in life.

As the instructor points out in awkward pose,

you are in a pretty stressful situation right now. Your body is stressed. If you can finds peace in the posture by using your breath, you are doing yoga. If you can bring tha peace into the world when you are in a stressful sitatuation you are doing yoga. That right there is my key for this week.

I need to learn to bring what I find onto the mat into the world. I can do this by remembering to breathe and see what the reality is in this moment without judgement or anger, accept it for what it is, and remember that we all carry a burden, and to find me in everyone I meet, because ultimately we are all connected.

I noticed a lot today, and it was really hard not to judge myself. I was running late this morning and so I was already in a bit of a cranky mood. In my rush to get out the door I managed to spill hot tea all over my hand, and the fact that I was running late already I immediately convinced myself the universe was having a good laugh at my attempt at this challenge. I must say I let my stress get to me on the road, and made some unpleasant remarks to other drivers. But each time I did (I did it more than once even though I was trying to not do it) I managed to not judge myself. I would begin to and I stopped myself each time, took a deep breath and tried to see that each person on the road was also trying to get somewhere.

However, today got me thinking about the amount of times a day we do make judgements, and also what we allow others to bring into our lives. For instance, gossip. By nature, I don’t gossip, I think it’s a waste of energy and time, but how often to I sit and listen to someone gossip because I don’t want to be mean? How often do I hear others complain about something they can’t change and allow them to have their rant, which later affects my day? It’s one thing to talk to get something off your chest, its another when the subject is the same day in and day out without any action to change. So how do I not allow these things to affect me, but still be a giving person?

Case in point, this afternoon I had to be present for my students’ 30 year annivsary party for their company. One of my students began talking about colleagues of hers to me. While I don’t know these people, I didn’t know if I should stop her or not. I decided not to, but I didn’t perpetuate the conversation, she said what she needed to say and we changed the subject. I think I handled it the best I could without being rude.

Another thing I thought of today was in order for this to succeed I need to practice compassion, and that might make it easier. Because if I do take a step back, breathe through something or someone that is bothering me, I might see that they were not put in this situation to annoy me, that they too have their worries, and problems, and to not allow this to dampen my mood, but also to not judge them because they are having an off day either. Lastly, not judge myself for reacting a way I wish I hadn’t. So this week is about changing my patterns, but also observing and seeing where they come from, and maybe by doing that I’ll be able to change the behaviour enough that it will change me. Just like in yoga, we fall out of poses, we physically can’t do poses sometimes, but we continue to get on the mat, and we observe what our bodies and mind are trying to tell us. By observing we learn to adjust, and slowly the pose that was impossible suddenly is possible and fun.

Day 2 Thursday

Today I practiced the full series of ashtanga. This series is one of the more traditional forms of yoga. Originally, and in many ashtanga schools, you are only allowed to practice up to the point that you are no longer able to do the poses. However, some schools, including the video I have, allow for adjustments.

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The first time I practiced Ashtanga was during my previous yoga challenge, Summer of Yoga challenge, and after the practice I laid on my mat and cried, because the series was such a challenge for me. Up to that point I had been doing bikram yoga every day, I had become familiar with the postures, I felt confident and strong in them. By doing ashtanga I was stepping out of my comfort bubble, allowing myself to fail at some poses, in some cases even sitting out of poses, it was very difficult. I was dissopointed at times, frustrated, I wanted to change my mind in the middle of the practice and do bikram, but I didn’t. I stuck to my decision, I forced myself to stay on my mat and finish it, and looking back, even when I was crying, I knew I had done the right thing. Even though I couldn’t do some of the postures, I proved to myself that change, challenges, stepping out of my comfort zone is not something that is impossible, it’s possible, and its the only way I will grow as a person and in my practice.

So today, I did the full primary series again. I was ready for some negative thinking, self-judging thoughts, but they never came. I went with my pace, I followed the instructions, I did what I could, modified when necessary, and it ended up being a very positive experience. I can even say most of my postures have come a long way. I’m really glad I chose to do this today. It opened my eyes to how valuable this challenge is, my train of thought has changed. Only a few weeks ago, I would have definitely judged myself, and attempted to convince myself to give up. I am pretty happy this morning.

Looking at my decision to do ashtanga today, is quite telling. The series is quick flowing, there are not many moments in which you remain in one pose, it is quite fluid, and so can be challenging physically and mentally. It kind of works the same way as my off the mat challenge in that way. I am asking myself to behave differently, to change my perspective for just a week and see what happens. This is challenging through out the day, but I keep on going. At times, I want to give up, and sometimes I do fall down, but I keep on getting back up. I got out of my comfort zone.

Today, I was able to see, on my mat, the affects of getting out of my comfort zone – growth, learning, a new perspective. That is want ashtanga gave me today.

While driving, I had a moment. I was at a junction on the road in which a two lane 90 zone area merges into one lane. Here in Saguenay, this means that certain drivers speed up to crazy speeds in order to get to the merge first, even though most of the time they still have to press on their brakes when merging due to traffic. This can be quite irritating on so many levels – the stupidity of the act being the biggest annoyance, not only is it a waste of everyone’s energy but it is very dangerous to everyone as well. In the past, I have to admit, I did not react well to this sort of situation. Today, I noticed a change. While I was coming to the merge (I was basically on it) I noticed a car coming from behind on the other lane very very quickly, I was sure he/she wouldn’t make it, but they sped up and passed me at the last moment. As they passed I had an urge to voice my annoyance by honking my horn and saying some very unpleasant things. But I stopped myself, I took a deep breath and continued on my way. I could have said something mean that they wouldn’t even hear but would instead bruise my own positivity. But instead, I chose to think: this is my reality, I can choose to allow this to bruise me, or I can move on. I chose to move on, and didn’t give it another thought. Progress? I think so :).

Day 3 Friday

The tendency to judge is so easy, especially to ourselves. If we see something done differently we automatically make a comparison, or judgement based on our experience. It’s a very difficult thing to try and change. However, once you realize that everyone expresses themselves through their uniqueness, the same situation doesn’t seem so foreign any longer, but a quality you admire in a person or something you like about an experience. I noticed this through out today. When my mind would go to automatically make a judgement I would stop myself and realize that this person wouldn’t be expressing themselves fully without this quality, or this situation wouldn’t be what it was without this of that. We make of it what we want. We can choose to be threatened, afraid of change, closed to a new experience, or we can take it for what it is and appreciate what it has to offer.

When you judge someone or something you immediately close off any connection that you could have made. The situation or person becomes “other”. It is the ultimate ego-centered way of thinking. You cannot love, connect, or grow from seeing the world this way. Every creature, every experience, has its beauty, it’s simplicity, it’s lesson. The ego attempts to control by labeling everything from one perspective.

This can be brought onto the mat as well. I practiced ashtanga again this morning, but before making that decision, I had tried to convince myself myself not to practice ashtanga because some poses are missing, and there aren’t very many balancing postures. I tried to convince myself because I have labeled a certain kind of yoga, as the ultimate yoga experience. But I know this to not be true. I have taken so many different kinds of yoga classes before, and each of them have their benefits, their learning experience, and their own specific beauty and reasons that bring me to my mat every day. I labeled ashtanga as a yoga that is lacking, because I do love balancing poses – they offer so much depth and learning, but also because it’s a challenge, it’s an “other” compared to my more familiar practices. I realized this morning that ashtanga may be lacking in balancing postures, but it has something else to offer, a deep connection to the breath, a sense of meditation, and a challenge of misconceptions of what my body can and can’t do. I realized this morning that while ashtanga is a challenge, by following some modifications to the more difficult poses I am unable to do, the impossible becomes possible.

By opening my mind without judgement I allowed myself to see the beauty in something different and new. That is what this week is about. Allowing myself to open my mind to something or someone different, I allow myself to see the beauty and not close myself up in a cage of misconceptions and judgements.

Day 4 Saturday

I practiced ashtanga again, it seems to relax me even though it is very challenging. I feel light afterwards, free. Today I also practiced meditation after practice. I read that when practicing sauca it is advised to meditate watching a candle. This is done for cleansing purposes, stare until your eyes water in order to cleanse your eyes, but I used it for focus as well. Today I meditated on what I had written about yesterday. Instead of seeing others from my perspective, learn to see that the light that I invasion inside me is also inside everyone else. We are all connected by this light, our humanity, and to see that everyone espresses that light in their own unique way. But the light remains the same, love, and so each person, is expressing the same thing but in a different way. It is by seeing the light, the uniqueness in everyone I meet, that I will see myself in everyone.

I watched a video last night before going to bed about karma. The video (find link below) answers the question how to get good karma. The word karma means action. We are constantly making choices, as Deepak Chopra says, we are choice makers. This is the the way we create karma, by conscious choice making. Most people are prisoners of karma, because they are not consciously making choices, instead they are making choices based on conditioned reflexes. For example, getting annoyed and angry in a traffic jam, or muttering negative comments in the grocery store because someone is taking up the full isle. If we continue to make unconscious choices we will have predictable outcomes in our lives, negativity attracts negativity. But if we decide to make a conscious choice, we always have a choice, we can begin to change these predictable outcomes, we can create happiness, positivity attracts positivity.

This is essentially what yoga is about, and more importantly what this challenge is about. When you choose to get on your mat every day and listen to your body, you will make changes. You will feel the tension, and attempt to release the negativity. At first we do this only on the mat. But slowly and with time we begin to see that we can take those same principles on the mat and apply them to real life, practice yoga off the mat. It is with this conscious choice that we begin to see real changes in our lives. We also see that the stress, unhappiness, negativity we felt before, were caused by our conditioned reflexes. They were caused by our ego-centric view of me against the world. We did not see that we are all connected with humanity, we are all attempting the the same thing, to express our uniqueness to the world, to live, to be happy. We can help each other by spreading happiness rather than negativity, and through this conscious choice, we will create good karma.

Here is the link:

https://www.deepakchopra.com/video/view/199/ask_deepak__what_is_karma#

I realized something today I have had a cold for the last three days, and not once did I complain or feel dragged down by it. This is a great achievement for me. In general, when I get sick it consumes me. I complain about it, I feel trapped by it, and everyone hears about it. No one knew these last few days that I was sick. When asked how I was, I would reply great, and I truly meant it. Being sick didn’t inhibit me in any way. On top of that, in only three days I feel completely fine. Usually when I get sick it lasts long, probably because I was so consumed by it. This is truly a huge step for me, and further proof that by changing your mindset just a little, your whole world shifts in a new direction.

Sunday day 5

I was just starting to do some housecleaning and I realized something. I HAVE complained this week, of things everyone complains about, probably most of us don’t even notice:

I was just vacuuming the couches (I have the most lovable cat a girl could ask for, she is my best non human friend but she is a long-haired cat)

I have learned there is a dear price to pay for her beauty. I was just complaining of how long it is taking me to do this chore, and how her hair, on the couch, looks, feels, and acts like cob webs. I often complain about this while vacuuming the hair off the couches, but today was different. Instead of allowing that thought to dwell inside me and create negative energy, like I usually do, I reminded myself of the special relationship my cat and I have, and how I wouldn’t have it any other way. Cleaning her hair after that was not a chore and the annoyance was gone.

This morning after yoga, breakfast and doing the dishes I began my morning rituals : brushing my teeth, face, making the bed. And as I was brushing my teeth I thought : my god my hair is so fizzy, I wish I didn’t have such frizzy hair. I probably complain about my hair in some way on a daily basis. I noticed this morning as I said this mantra that replays in my head every day, I felt ugly, because of one comment : The power or words/thoughts. But again, I noticed what the thought did. It’s not just a thought, once we think something negative we change our perception. In this case I saw ugliness staring back at me in the mirror. The truth of the matter is, I had just finished yoga, of course my hair was frizzy, but that doesn’t make me ugly. My hair is unique and a part of who I am.

If comments to myself change my perception of chores and even myself, what does negative communication do for relationships. By gossiping and complaining I believe we limit our communication. Instead of making a real connection, we make a superficial one. Instead of seeing that I have a wonderful companion in my cat, I see hair on the couches and chores which lead to negativity. By being more present in our routines, like vacuuming, or our connections with people we become isolated, angry, and negative. Today I choose to happily take care of my cat, see beauty and uniqueness in the mirror (even with frizzy hair), and make real connections with people.

Some great revelations today.

Day 6 Monday

I had a strange day today. I don’t know if I can fully describe it, but I’m going to try. I took a break from yoga today. I try to do this every so often: if I can feel my body needs this, or if I need to find a new perspective. On days that I do take a break I usually meditate. Since I’ve been doing a lot of readings on chakras, and understanding the self this week, I decided to do a chakra meditation. It went well, however, progressively through out the day I felt as if I was losing perspective. I felt as if I was gradually moving away from my center, from my truth. Nothing really happened to cause this.

One thing that did change was that I hung out with some friends. For the last few days I’ve been at home, almost in a meditative state, and today I went out into the world. I still felt onnected to my challenge, but not centered. I came home and decided to mediate again, and I’m still feeling off balance, almost as if I have allowed something in, I’m not silent in my thoughts any longer. I don’t see this as a setback, it’s reality, we need to be able to remain centered or try to at least, in all situations. It might be this way because I didn’t have my usual focused yoga class this morning.

One thing I do know, this challenge has opened my eyes. I see now that gossiping, complaining, and negative talk causes us to not fully communicate. We use these mechanisms to not deal with reality, to blame others. We create artificial connections with people that mean nothing. This week I have made some deep connections with people, I have communicated with them fully, and felt a connection. I also believe that this has helped people communicate effectively to me. I feel more respective to listening without judgement, and I feel that too has made a big difference.

After having written this, I decided to put my one day no yoga rule in the garbage. I could feel I needed to do yoga, I needed to find my center. I improvised, and ended up doing a lot of balancing postures. I did a flow of warrior, three warrior two, reverse warrior, and triangle. I felt a strong sense of power and stability in reverse warrior.

 

I usually avoid reverse warrior. I feel tense, tight and stressed in this pose. Any good yoga teacher will tell you, the poses you don’t want to do, are the poses you should do. I know this, and every so often I choose to do reverse warrior, but always feel defeated by it. Today was the first time I felt a sense of stability and power. I believe it has to do with my focus on being more positive. This challenge has really helped me hone in on my strengths, which has helped me shed light on how I limit my own emotional growth. This has also shown me how these negative modes of common cation to myself, and the world, work to cover this strength and power will negative energy, which makes me feel powerless and weak.

Another pose I chose to do that I usually avoid was standing head to knee pose. Once I chose to do it I could sense a slight sense of panic. That sense of panic told me I needed to do it, so I did. Even though I fell out of it (I got my head to my knee on both legs and immediately fell out) I realized something. The point is not keeping centered, that’s impossible when you step out into the world. The point is remembering, it never leaves. It’s always there, and we just need to find it. We will find it in strange times, like today in standing head to knee and reverse warrior, but we will find it, if we just look hard enough.

This is a theme that reoccurs in my blog, and during this year of living yoga. This is something I need to remember. I recently chose the song that I have chosen for my journey to India this year. While I will not reveal the song just yet, this lesson is the reason I chose it. To remember this lesson.

Day 7: Tuesday

This week has been pretty revealing, and yesterday topped the cake at how I allow things to affect me, and rather than deal with the issue I allow it to grow inside me. Someone once told me “assuming makes an ass our of you and me” I have a tendency of assuming things. This often gets me into trouble, since once I assume I create a background story to why this event is happening this way, or why this person is acting this way. I cause myself a lot of stress and heartache on something I made up in my own head. I wrote about such an occasion yesterday with my sister. It opened my eyes to how often I assume things and negativity grows inside me, takes over, and stress occurs.

Today was pretty uneventful, I basically was at a loss of what to do next on my challenge. I didn’t want to veer too far from this week because I am only just beginning to notice patterns in my behaviour. One other such pattern is organizing my house. Now, my house is not dirty in any way, I try to keep it as clean as humanly possible for someone who would rather research, do yoga, and read rather than clean, but I am not organized.

At the moment I am in my office and there are papers scattered everywhere. I have a pile on the floor beside me that is designated papers for recycling, I have post it notes all over the desk with various grammar concepts, phone numbers, yoga mantras for when I am on the phone with a negative person (that actually helps), yoga dvd’s, and some grammar and attendance sheets from my last remaining English class.

I have been meaning to organize my office for the last three weeks, and every time I go to do this, I search something interesting about yoga on the internet, write a blog post, read an article from facebook on yoga, research India … I can seriously waste hours not doing my intended task, but research, write, read instead. There are many more patterns of behaviour that I have witnessed this week, and so I want to focus in on these mundane behaviours that actually create negativity and stress in my life. So here I am again in my office not cleaning, but researching. I found an interesting concept which I would like to use for my next week of my challenge.

We have all been conditioned though our life experiences to react certain ways, define how we perceive the world we live in, these are called samskaras. They are basically repeated behaviours which reinforce our habits, and views of the world. This can be seen in all facets of life, even on the mat. Has anyone ever practiced and realized that in a very common posture they were not REALLY there? I have this happen to me often in downward dog, i realize at the end of practice that not once did I pay attention to my pelvic wall, or my arms during downward dog, which probably means I wasn’t doing it properly. Another example is expecting bad drivers on the road and always coincidentally coming across them – again this can be seen on the mat. We bring all of our habits onto the mat – fearing bad drivers, or challenges in life means you will fear challenging postures on the mat (anyone remember my difficulties with crow and plough – huge aha moment here!).

I found a great article (many actually but one that I will use for my challenge) laying out steps of focusing in on your samskaras.

The first step is to set an intention on the mat

Each day I am to set an intention to focus on that day: for the example of my office space I would consider how I would feel if my workspace was clean and organized. I would consider what things I could do to make this happen – how to organize the cleaning process so I don’t become overwhelmed, and how to stay focused (keep the computer off is one example) and set my intention of completing that task that day. This will follow all sorts of behaviour that I have witnessed, and have become habitual on my part. Another example could be leaving late from home and blaming drivers for being in my way. By doing this, I will hopefully start to identify my habits and begin to change them and “break the samskara cycle”.

Step 2: Slow down because I am not working and I live in an area of Quebec that is not so quick paced, I am going to change this one a bit. Instead of slowing down, I am going to go wifi free, of unplug myself from the never ending world of internet procrastination.
What this means is I am going to have one hour a day (maybe by the end of the week more) without internet: no ipad, no netflix, no computer. I will read (a real book so I can avoid playing on my ipad or turn off my internet access on my ipad – I will need to make sure I don’t cheat here) or sit and sip some tea. I spend all of my time researching yoga and india, reading and answering emails, bumming around on facebook, literally staring at a computer screen most of teh day, and if I am not doing that I watch a show in my ipad or netflix, or do yoga. Taking one hour a day tuned out will help me focus on my thoughts, contemplate my challenge, and just be with myself.

Step 3: keep a log

I will chronicle my days to see where my energy goes – what are my habits – starting tonight (after having written this post) I am going to begin a log listing where my day goes. I will not post this log but will highlight insights on what I notice about my days. I will not judge myself on where my time goes, but instead notice the patterns and begin to change them (or attempt to at least).

I will also notice my habits on the mat and chronicle these as well, and will be meditating a lot this week to keep myself focused and centered. Wish me luck!

On a side note this will be the last week of my challenge due to a family responsibility I have in Montreal starting next Friday. Once I meet J in Montreal to help him out with something family related, I would like my focus to be on him and his family rather than myself and my challenge, and so my yoga off the mat challenge will be ending next Tuesday (since I leave later that week for Montreal).