The Yamas and Niyamas Part 7

Update: Quick note to all. As I’ve learnt and grown, and with the new knowledge I’ve gained, I’ve come to understand that my pronunciation of some Sanskrit words in some of the voice recordings for my blog are incorrect. My dearest apologizes for this mistake. I appreciate your patience while I update my recordings to correct these errors.

We are already into the second half of this series and the time has gone by so fast. We are halfway through the year and even though everything around us has slowed down, time hasn’t. It can be easy to get hung up in the motions and before we know it this new norm has become habitual. As we all know some habits do us good, but others not so much. When we build a behaviour into a habit it becomes easier and easier to perform, and if we stick to it, we no longer need to force our self but rather we just do it. However, with some behaviours or activities, along the way they can become so habitual that they can lose their meaning. We can lose touch with the intention, the purpose. For this reason, I want to step back a moment and look at what we have covered so far. Each of these principles, the yamas and niyamas, are so deeply rooted that it takes a lot of reflection and interpretation to truly grasp and experience that deeper reality and find clarity. I would love if you shared with me some of the realizations that you’ve experienced over the past few months and how these practices, and others, have influenced you.  

Looking back over the past six entries you may have noticed there is a common theme. Awareness. Awareness is essential to understanding and uncovering your truth and what’s true around you, which in turn provides you with wholeness. Once wholeness is achieved, the ethics of the yamas, non-violence, truthfulness, moderation, non-stealing, and non- greed, come naturally. It is the practice of the niyamas, that will help us deepen our awareness and bring us to wholeness. Niyamas in English translates to observances. Let’s think of them as personal customs or behaviours that we follow and bring awareness to in our daily choices. They help us build self-discipline, lead us to a healthy lifestyle, and ultimately enlightenment. As we move through the five niyamas, the relationship between them and the yamas will be more obvious and it will become prominent that each one is a step in the process, and it prepares you for the next. As you may have heard me say before, in order for us to show up and be our best self, in order for us to help others, guide others, and support others, we must first be anchored in our own reality and gain clarity. Clarity of the truth so we can always find our way back to our center even through all the different storms. These personal customs and behaviours will provide us with this centering and clarity.

The first of the niyamas is śauca, which in English translates to purity. This means to live a pure and clean life. What does it mean to be pure? Well, by practicing the yamas we gain purity. By speaking truthfully and being our authentic self we are being pure, and, by letting go of past experiences and future expectations, and living in the present moment, we are also being pure. Purity is achieved by living a healthy lifestyle that promotes cleanliness and purity of the internal being, our mind, body and spirit, and the external being, our environment. Maintaining a personal hygiene routine; eating a balanced diet of whole and fresh foods; cleansing ourselves of stagnant energy, behaviours and feelings; and keeping our surroundings clean and free of clutter all direct us towards a pure and positive life.

Now the most obvious way of practicing purity in our day to day routine is by keeping our surroundings clean. We all know the importance of reducing the spread of bacteria and viruses, but having a clean environment not only prevents illness but it makes us feel better. How can we sit down at the end of the day and feel calm and balanced with a mess everywhere? laundry baskets overflowing, a sink full of dishes, and with those dust bunnies staring at us from the corner. For me, I get irritable and I find it difficult to concentrate when the space I am working in is messy or cluttered. I feel so much lighter and relaxed when I have more room to work and am able find what I’m looking for when I need it. Basically in my house if something doesn’t have a place then the rearranging begins, and every so often it is time to reassess what belongings are valuable and purposeful currently in my life, and perhaps let go of those that are not.

If you know anything about me it is that I love food. I love cooking food, growing it, of course eating it, really anything to do with food. Food is my passion. Over the years the more experience and knowledge I have gained the more I have come to understand the relationship food has with our body and mind. I have personally and physically felt the connection between what I eat and how my body responds and functions. Eating a balanced diet of whole foods is a critical first step in cultivating purity in our lives. Because, for us to grow and bloom we need to fuel ourselves appropriately.  Now, what does this look like? To simplify it, a balanced diet consists of eating the proper amount of macro-nutrients based on your goals and lifestyle, and eating a wide variety of foods to ensure proper intake of our micro-nutrients, that is our vitamins and minerals. Fueling our body and mind appropriately also includes adequate hydration and electrolyte balance. And, whole foods refer to eating foods in their purest form. The closest form to the actual ingredient. This includes eliminating all refined and highly processed foods from our diet. An example would be whole oats vs quick oats, the quick oats go through multiple processes to give them the quality of cooking quickly, they are the furthest from the whole oat. And, white flour is refined to remove parts of the whole wheat grain. That is the healthy parts with crucial macro-nutrients such as fiber.   

In recent years I was forced to learn how to integrate purity into my lifestyle. I have eliminated my exposure to many toxins by giving up unhealthy habits, cleaning up my diet, and letting go of past experiences and expectations. I’ve educated myself and continue to do so on what is “healthy” and what isn’t, and there are many different claims and contradicting opinions, but now I can make informed choices on what I expose myself to and how often. Now I am aware when making decisions that are going to directly influence my well-being, ultimately impact my life. Dealing with chronic pain has been my motivator to make this change. I thought to myself maybe I’m causing my own pain because I do not treat myself well or fairly. I was not taking care of myself and I wasn’t getting better. Here I was setting this expectation for doctors to “fix me” yet I kept harming myself with these bad habits. I felt like I had been so impure for so many years that my body was giving me all these signals and I had no choice but to make a change. I quit smoking cigarettes, changed my diet, increased my activity, cleared my thoughts, minimized my intake of toxic substances and I continue to search for natural products that are safer. And, although I still deal with chronic pain, I feel better, I am doing better, and I feel more confident with what the future holds. I have found the strength to move forward and the confidence to survive all the new storms I will encounter through the rest of my life. I went from feeling defeated and like there was no escape to feeling like I could conquer anything.

Of course, I still have some limitations, and these have changed as I have discovered my fears and which beliefs I had been creating for myself. The key is, I no longer let the limitations get in my way and I now search for a different route around these obstacles. Because, I believe in myself and I am capable, and, I believe that you are capable too. This brings me to another way of practicing purity in our day to day actions. Keeping our environment, internal and external, free from negative behaviour and thoughts is crucial to our success and happiness. Part of letting go of the past meant that I had to let go of these limiting beliefs that I was carrying around for years. “I’m not good enough” and “I’m not smart enough”. Our mind is unable to distinguish a perceived thought from a true event, therefore, by telling myself these statements made my mind believe it was true, and along with this my actions and perceptions were then based on that belief. Cleansing my mind of these beliefs meant discovering the truth about myself and my life, and life in general. Practicing the different branches of yoga, such as the yamas and niyamas in addition to the poses (or asana) and meditation, were my way of creating awareness around these beliefs. This awareness has allowed me to get in touch with my body and create alignment and synergy between my body and my mind. This alignment has opened many new opportunities for me, and I continue to discover more possibilities.

By purifying our mind, body and soul, and creating this center and synergy, clarity is gained. Many of you I`m sure can agree that when our mind is racing with thoughts, whether it’s our long to do list or replaying a conversation with our boss wondering what we should or shouldn’t have said, when these thoughts are racing through our mind it is difficult to make clear decisions and cultivate prosperity in any area of our life. When we are running in circles and feel like there has been no gain it`s because we have no direction. Clarity gives us direction. How do we gain clarity? through stillness. However you find stillness, whether through yoga, nature, art or some other means, it allows us to process and clear our minds of these thoughts that keep us spinning. Basically, there is so much stimulation and expectations around us that we never slow down long enough to process or analyze what’s happening or why it`s happening. Finding stillness, pausing for just a moment each day to reflect and ground ourselves, gives us the opportunity to feel, to hear, and to experience the truth. Stillness helps us cultivate awareness, gain clarity and then give us direction.  

There are so many ways we can purify ourselves and our life, these are only a few examples that I have experienced personally. If you are interested in learning more about what steps you can take in your life to purify your body, mind and soul, then click the follow button below and stay tuned for more. Or, send me a message with your struggles and I can share some tools that have worked for me.

Thank you so much for going me on this journey.

Until next time…

Namaste  

“Only an impure mind runs here and there, forcing us to bring it back again and again”

Book II – 41 Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Sri Swami