Practice Mindful Living with 4 Key Yogic Practices
Yog is a holistic life-altering discipline for those that wish to bring in more mindfulness in their day-to-day life. Yog is a philosophy that encompasses much more than our physical body on the mat practicing asanas. While today we may use Yog to become flexible or fit and yes that works fabulously, however there’s much more to Yog than just physical fitness and flexibility.
Yogic living is a mindset shift. To put simply, it is a shift from an external focus to building a strong internal construct, the benefits of which are exponential.
Here are my reflections of 4 Key Yogic Practices that may help you unravel the tremendous potential they hold in the journey of self-discovery, resilience and thereby inner growth and transformation.
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1.????? Practice of Acceptance
Acceptance means acceptance of self;
acceptance of others;
acceptance of our past,
acceptance of difficult situations and circumstances;
acceptance of failures and successes;
acceptance of life as it unfolds.
Acceptance is a process. Acceptance is hard; at least it was for me. You may have a different experience.
Acceptance is not just acknowledging what happened and moving on. Acceptance is understanding our own situation, our past, making meaning of our circumstances, learning from them and moving forward with increased inner awareness of who we are.
Acceptance means moving forward without baggage. Until we are completely at ease, we won’t be able to move forward with ease.
Acceptance is an inner journey; it is a process within us.
Acceptance is to be flow easily through situations, where our emotions or mental construct does not become a hindrance in our journey blocking our growth and progress. To move with the flow is to be able to decipher that an external situation may have the potential to throw us off guard, but we have the power and control to not associate with it, thereby keeping ourselves unaffected internally.
It’s not easy for sure, however with mindfulness and clear thinking, one can move with the flow at ease.
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2.????? Practice of Letting Go
Once we have been able to accept fully, letting go becomes a fairly easier process.
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In our journey of accepting, we are bound to discover many aspects of ourselves, that we may stumble upon for the first time. On further exploration of our own inner mechanism, the external problems, people etc. dissuade and become inconsequential over a period of time.
We realise that the external does not matter. It’s all within. It’s all there within us. Whether the sky is blue, white or pink, it’s our lens. There’s no wrong, there’s no right. There’s just actions and consequences of actions.
When we reach to this level of understanding, application of the same in our daily lives becomes an organic process. We’re able to easily shed our past baggage as we recognise the futility of this very unhealthy pattern.
This is when letting go can happen easily. We won’t need to put any effort in the process.
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The other side to Acceptance and Letting go is Holding on.
It means holding on to people, situations, grief, trauma, pain, happiness, success, failure etc.
Holding on restricts us from moving forward. We may assume that with each passing day we are automatically moving forward in life; or we may evaluate our materialistic achievements as moving forward in life, however that’s not the correct barometer in the journey of inner growth.
Life provides an opportunity every single day to do things differently. However, very few of us make use of that opportunity. We must believe that the power lies within us.
Holding on many a times, seems like an overpowering desire that we have no control over. But we actually do. No external situation, people or emotions can overpower us and if that’s the case, we have given them that power.
It may seem like an unsurmountable challenge to let go; the mind may pose different arguments. Our mind may incorrectly assume that letting go is losing the battle to someone, whereas holding on is certainly more powerful. It’s actually just the opposite.
It does not matter what others think of us. We should let others think or do as they please. We have to do what is correct for our inner growth and spiritual evolution. In this journey of life, it is never about others. Hence the focus must always be on self.
Finally, holding on or attachment to things brings about the biggest obstacle, i.e. the inability to break our patterns; the outcome of which is repeatedly attracting similar life situations, challenges etc. Inability to let go and move on stunts our growth and we get stuck in repeated karmic cycles. It creates severe discomfort within us as we unknowingly move against the flow. This discomfort has the potential to manifest as severe ailments in the physical body over a period of time.
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We must keep ourselves open to every possibility of growth and by holding on we are actually shutting ourselves.
Also, we may sometimes experience obstacles after making up our mind to work on a specific long-standing pattern. It seems as though the entire Universe conspires against us from working on the pattern. This may happen. It’s a test. Do not give up.
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3.????? Practice of Surrender
By breaking through the delusive and claustrophobic bondage of ego and all things that come with it, we are in the journey of practicing surrender.
The practice of surrender can be a very humbling experience. Initially, the mind may interpret it as losing, or a weakness. It’s not.
It’s actually breaking free from all things that are self-limiting.
In the journey of practicing surrender we attempt to stay detached from outcomes. May be difficult, but worth trying. Each experience of surrender has the potential to bring about a lot of ease and freedom within us.
Surrendering to the Divine, the Higher power can be the first step.
In accepting that there is a lot that we do not know about ourselves and the Universe is surrender.
Surrender is in knowing that what we believe as ‘ours’ is actually momentary- it is not really ours. While it is there today, it may be gone the next second.
Surrender is in offering whatever we think and do, to our Higher power.
Surrender is in recognising our ego cropping up in situations and letting it go without allowing it to dominate us.
The biggest obstacle in the practice of surrender is external focus. At the cost of being repetitive, what others think of us does not and should not matter. The practice of surrender means surrendering to the Higher power, to our higher selves; it’s an attempt to vibrate at our highest frequency, irrespective of what others think or feel about us.
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4.????? Practice of Living in Harmony
Disharmony within is disharmony without.
Living in harmony begins within ourselves. Until we are at peace within, we cannot be in peace outside.
Expectations create disharmony. Instead of utilising our inner power, we are depending on others to fulfil our needs and desires.
Ego creates disharmony.? Well, this may sound bizarre considering the way we live today.
Excessive emotions create disharmony.
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Living in harmony is devoid of expectations. It does not depend on any external person, situation or circumstances. It means that our happiness, our peace comes from within. And that’s the absolute truth.
It means we don’t need to look at ourselves from other’s eyes.
Internal harmony is the most peaceful and the most powerful experience.
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We can begin exploring each of these yogic practices daily and over a period of time we may observe the difference within ourselves.
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I’ve been practicing the above yogic practices since 2017-18. The above reflections are limited to my personal experience and discovery. During this journey, I’ve slipped many a times; either life brought about new challenges, new situations, or certain old patterns kept cropping up to say hello once in a while, to lure me back to the past. Certain incidents derailed the process a bit, but everytime I picked myself up and moved forward. ?The desire and will to keep going stemmed from the realisation that I benefitted enormously with the little that I was able to put in place.
It's been 7 years of practice; life brings about new opportunities of growth and possibilities every single day. ??
I’m excited to hear from you about your experience. Do share your thoughts!
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