Day 32

Another way, beside purifying ones lifestyle, to get rid of mental blocks is to focus/meditate on one object.

This is precisely why we have chosen a specific object of meditation. You are building familiarity with the object of meditation. If you change it everyday you have to  start over each time. 

This is a follow up from yesterdays’s reflection exercise.

Why work with your heartache? What breaks your heart open? 

 Often in modern Yoga, we hear that we should avoid anything that is not positive. We hear, “Do what feels good”, “Honor yourself”, or “Be kind to yourself.”

Even when we say, “You  should have a healthy lifestyle,” we often think of what we have categories and deemed “healthy.” When we think of someone who is a “Yogin” or a “meditator”  we think of someone who is always happy, always smiling, has it all together, has the perfect diet and the perfect body, and someone who never disturbs or disagrees with others.  When we think of someone who is a good citizen or a good member of society we give certain attributes more valuable than others, like keeping a clean house, being a good mother, worshipping a particular way, having this job or that. These qualities give us a certain value in our society. 

The values that we have are sometimes conditioned by our environment, and they don’t always match up with our true nature, let’s call them constructs.  Sometimes these constructs make us feel ashamed of ourselves, or ashamed of aspects of ourselves, so that we eventually represses these parts of ourselves, we oppress these parts of ourselves. We are told that you don’t talk about that, or you don’t do that, that’s not a good job, this is what you’re supposed to wear, you have to get it all done, you have to do this, or you can’t do that. We go along, because what else should we do?

We feel these repressions of the aspects of ourselves, as  disease and stress in our bodies and our minds(disturbances). 

If we adopt a practice to rid ourselves of these disturbances (like yoga) but then repress, even more, we create an even larger obstacle, that will eventually develop into a more severe mental or physical disturbance (illness). 

Rather than trying to bypass the aspects of ourselves that we don’t deem to be “good” we have the opportunity to embrace the fullness of ourself, which is the real goal of Yoga. This means evaluating our contracts, and possible changing them, if we find they do not resonate with our entire being.  

Use what breaks your heart wide open as the doorway to recovering your full self. Look at the shadow aspects of yourself, follow your own thoughts down the rabbit hole. Don’t avoid that part of yourself anymore.

By looking at our shadow sides, we can heal the discord, the fracture of our own self-image. We can develop familiarity with our self as a whole, and we can discriminate if we should embody or heal these aspects of ourselves. We may even find that just by looking at these pieces of ourselves, leaning into them gently, giving them our love and attention, that they become  reabsorbed into our being and are no longer obstacles but instead are our path. 

These parts of ourselves, the ones that we reconnect with, can often be the most powerful way for us to serve the world. Sharing our true selves liberates us and helps us to love ourselves as we are…Human, perfection in the emanation that is you and you and you….. Sharing our experiences with others can give them the safe place, love, and inspiration to do the same for themselves. 

Developing the ability to lovingly accept one’s self is a liberation and a skill. As you develop the capacity to reconstruct your perceptions of yourself you also develop the same capacity for understanding and accepting others, seeing their true divinity.