Gradually, Joyfully, Day to Day

Reading from Tuesday, February 28, 2012 yoga class

"The niyamas are practices that help us clean and cultivate our physical, mental, and emotional palates.  When we tend a garden by feeding and watering the plants we wish to cultivate and weeding out those that compete for nutrients in the soil, our chosen plants grow strong and healthy.  In the same way, when we cultivate the niyamas, we clear our environments as well as our bodies and minds of those qualities that create agitation, while we strengthen those qualities that uncover our essential quiet mind.  Previous to my first yoga retreat... I had no idea that yoga extended beyond my asana practice.  I returned home from the retreat inspired and somewhat overwhelmed by the vast scope of what I now understood to be the yogic life.  As good as asana practice made me feel, performing poses for an hour a day and then stowing my mat and sleepwalking through the rest of my life was no longer an option.  I had to ask myself how, as a city dweller with a full-time job, I could let my practice infiltrate my life so the whole thing became an expression of yoga.  I found out that the most practical answer to this question is: GRADUALLY.  Patience is a necessity.  Changing ingrained habits requires commitment.  It also requires compassion.  Whipping oneself into living a yogic life is impossible. 

In one nutrition class, my teachers suggested setting aside one day each month as "goop day."  On that day you get to eat a corn dog, a chocolate bar, or a pizza with extra everything--JOYFULLY, without guilt or self-judgment.  The occasional goop day reminds us that what's most important is not what we do once in a while but what we do DAY TO DAY.  Those habits we cultivate every day become the substance of who we are.

Like the yamas, the niyamas are not intended to be unbending law.  As with anything we choose to practice, over time our relationship with the niyamas will evolve.  How we express the niyamas ten years from now may bear little resemblance to how our practice looks today."

                                                      From the book "Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life" by Charlotte Bell

The second limb of yoga-- the niyamas-- the five niyamas are:   Saucha--Purity, Santosha--Contentment, Tapas--Discipline, Svadhyaya--Wisdom, Ishvarapranidhana--Surrender/Devotion