Cleaning The Lenses

I started this week’s class with the saying “wherever you go, there you are”  (which is actually a title of a book by Jon Kabat-Zinn) as a reminder that if we only seek to change the external circumstances until they are the perfect ones, but never stop to clear and adjust the lenses through which we see those circumstances, we will never find what we were looking for. We can be in the most beautiful place on earth not seeing its beauty, we can have all the shiniest things by our side and yet not have enough.

If our inner landscape is turbulent, there will be no clarity, the lenses we are using show us a blurry picture, we are trying to let the outside change the inside, but this is shaky ground – the outside will never (at least not lastingly) change the inside, It must start from within! We need to learn how to cultivate the ability to find beauty within and to let that be what tints the lenses that we see the world with.

Before we go any further, let me say that this is not a suggestion that everything can or should be reframed, that everything needs to be positively spined! But a lot of the small things where we lose energy fighting and resisting can indeed be reframed, a lot of those things were our choice to begin with and it’s also our choice to change how they are looked at! This will also not take away from whatever you are feeling in a giving situation but it can (and likely will) add space which is such an underrated gift: space for ease, for joy, for effortless living!

Let me give you an example of this morning:

It’s 5.30am and, as most days, I am cycling towards my first session of the day. It’s dark, cold and it's raining. I feel a kind of resistance building up, my body tenses up as if that could stop the rain or the cold, and there is a brief moment of a familiar feeling that gives the power completely to the external scenario!

But then, I ask myself: is that story really reflecting of what is happening? And I remember that I have a car parked outside the very warm, comfortable and safe home that I just left behind. I remember that I choose not to drive that car unless I have to. I remember that I am committed to moving to places instead because the unnecessary use of petrol and emissions makes me uncomfortable and because movement makes me feel better about everything. I remember also that I get to do this because I live in a healthy and strong body.

And suddenly it all changes: I am flying through the dark cycle paths, cold wind and rain on my face, singing my lungs out to an album that I have been listening on repeat! It’s the same temperature, the same darkness, the same rain but the lenses through which I see the things are no longer the same, and I am having an amazing time because I remember that this way of moving and being is truly in alignment with my intentions and the direction I want to take me life to!

This, my friends, is Yoga off the mat! And though the benefits of this practice – and the practice itself – can be so vast and varied, it feels as if sometimes it becomes confused with some of its side effects (usually physical) and these more subtle, but arguably more important, aspects of it are undervalued.

The ability to meet life from a place of balance and intension is, for me, the most valuable gift that yoga, in its broad sense, has brought me.

I would also like to share with you a recent email received from a dear student outlining their own subtle changes through a regular practice, that brought me so much joy to read. If only one person finds balance in a situation where otherwise there would be none, my job is done, my intentions honoured and the world a better place!

Here’s a little exert from it:

“It has almost been a year since I joined the Ommillion Yoga (...) it has been a transformational experience. You have helped me immensely to not only make my body healthy, supple and agile but most importantly to balance my mind. I am surprised at times to see myself calm and composed in stressful work environments. Earlier, I used to be tensed or worried, but now I manage my thoughts and responses much better (...)."

These are the words of someone that through Yoga tends to their inner world, cultivates its balance and lets that balance move outwards, instead of giving the outside world the job and the responsability of bringing inner balance. Someone that uses Yoga to soften the fluctuations of the mind* in order to bring clarity and balance to everyday life!

*Yoga Sutra 1.2 defines Yoga as the calming (or soothing) of the fluctuations of the mind "Yogas chitta vritti nirodha"

With this in mind,I leave you with this suggestion

As you go through the day, find at least one time (I guarantee you there will be at least one) where the lenses from which you are seeing the world can be adjusted! Then notice how and what changes and let me know. Or better even: tell someone else in your life and and ask them to try it too… lets ripple out some goodness into a world that often can use some extra!

With love,

Ri