An examined life leads to a mindful one, and vice-versa. Both require us to slow down. Practicing witnessing all as it is, not how we’ve conditioned ourselves to interpret it to be. In yoga, when we choose to explore ancient teachings and self-reflect as we evaluate them for relevance in our lives today, we are yoking. In other words, we are unifying and bringing related things into balance, aligned harmony. Active witnessing and learning about yourself is what makes for “good yoga”. Subsequently, it also sets the stage for a really great life experience. So what is that anyway? “Good yoga”; How do you determine the value of the various forms of yoga and decide whether or not it’s working for you?
An Examined Life
Under The Microscope of Loving Kindness, We Examine Life for its lessons. First, let me reiterate that it doesn’t matter how your personal practice measures up against someone else’s; it’s a mute comparison and there is no need to even attempt making it. Your personal practice is built upon the levels and activities of life that resonate with you. Wherever you’re at, I’m going to venture out and assume that it is EXACTLY where you need to be. In any given moment, our soul is in a particular space of experiencing this life. So whether you get your blood good and pumping in vinyasa, or find stillness in yin, or both; good yoga is useful. All yoga holds mind-body benefits and it’s use and utility, in every form, stem from the elements of your practice being an on-going discipline of development and growth. If you’ve got a routine, you have the beginnings of yoga.
An Examined Life: Practice Vs. Activity Mindsets
In the world of yoga, participants usually fall into 2 distinct camps: 1) Those who view yoga as an activity, and 2) The students who recognize yoga as an integrative practice that translates both on and off the mat. Both camps are awesome! If you’re a yoga as an active activity gal, I’m so proud of you.…. If you’re an integrative practitioner, I’m pretty proud of you too. For most of us in the west, at some point, we all started out as walk-ins to a studio, trying yoga (as an activity) on for size. We stayed because something about it appealed to us. The decision to continue coming because something about it spoke to us even deeper than all the movement and fun. There is no right or wrong way to be a student of yoga, for we are all students of life.
How Do You Learn About Yourself?
In sanskrit, self-study is called Svadyaya. It is one of the most incredible tasks to embark upon and will strengthen your life in every area. I highly recommend that you journal about the discoveries you make as you excavate within.
First, you have to move stress, anxiety, etc, out of the way, and stick in on the shelf to be worked on when you purposefully choose.
Second, In order to move the sources of frenzy, you have to present. Pull your awareness into your physical body and witness life precisely as it is. The more mindful we become, the more profound our yoga. To attain wisdom, joy, or change, you have to cultivate awareness. So often we get discouraged by thinking that educational wisdom is the only way to understand things, but it isn’t. All you have to do is start with the basic and deeper understandings of yourself. And luckily, you are the world’s most foremost expert on that.
You’re Already Half Way There!
Third, you have to practice. Runners run. Writers write. Mothers mother. Yogi’s Yog. The only way to be something is to do something, and yet, it is also true that the only way to do something, is to be it. “We do without doing and it all gets done”. We are being without doing and in doing with are being diligent. *If you can’t tell, philosophies are REALLY my jam 🙂
Fourth, we must use our awareness to respond to self and life, in an authentic way. An important part of living an examined life as it applies to yogic principles is that we must work on walking our talk. The goal of all this self-discovery and yoking is to unify and align what talk with how we actively express our states of being. Take one day, and make “walking your talk” your main focal point; see what you notice, observe what happens. “We witness life as we are” because it’s the only way that we can absorb and analyze information.
On Day At A Time
At the end of the day, the better that you come to know yourself, the easier it becomes to mindfully connect with the world and everything in it. Living an examined life isn’t difficult, it simply requires your awareness. Draw that intention inward friend. Center yourself and practice living your intentions very intentionally. In The Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman uses imagery that beautifully illustrates the spirit of Svadyaya. Let me share with you a few lines from his, “Song of Myself”:
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. . . .
Myself moving forward then and now and forever,
Gathering and showing more always and with velocity,
Infinite and omnigenous. . . .
I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself,
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)