In praise of smaller lives.......
Is there pressure to become more in 2017?
New Perspectives on Detoxing- Reducing to find Authenticity.
What drives us? We wish each other happiness, health, prosperity and good fortune. At this time of year we expand our attention into changing and improving. In this shift, pause. Pause towards a dialogue about authenticity. There are moments of clarity that stand out when we feel right. We feel true. Searching for meaning and gravity to our lives, value becomes equated with what is noticeable, communicable. We create meaning to our lives in actions that are measurable, identifiable. How do we become more in touch with authenticity? How do we recognise these moments and collect them together to become a way of being? If we were to reduce what gets in the way of experiencing authenticity, what would we discover about our relationships, our purpose, about feeling true.
Should becomes being.
Our culture has the potential to make us sick physically and mentally. Value has been commodified and seriously misplaced. The pursuit of the individual has created profound disconnection and loneliness. Our framework of aspiration, of working for the material, disconnecting from nature and the commodification of knowledge, has moved us away from listening to our authentic hearts. It’s not that there is necessarily some profound talent that lies undiscovered but that we find authenticity; that we can swim in our own current, within the river of our culture. In our authentic currents we can support others, that following your authenticity is not an individual or self centred act, it has effect. Currents and slip streams are created for others too that make it easier to swim against and up stream from what makes us unwell.
Let us move away from being swept up in a singular view of detoxing that is about reducing the negative effects of diet and stimulants.
Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras detailed how Kleshas or misperceptions cause pain and suffering, that they move us away from our authentic selves. The 5 Kleshas are Avidya or ignorance, Asmita or ego, raga or attachments, Dvesa or avoidance and abinidvesa or fear.
Our practice on the mat can work in a bifold way. The practices themselves of ashtanga yoga; of movement, form, breathing and concentration facilitate clarity. It changes our awareness and our identification with thoughts. We are not our goals or our hopes or our fears. They create increments of perspective. Integrating body, breath and mind. It changes our ability to perceive and to find patterns of truth and authenticity in our lives and relationships. The practice itself on the mat can be a microcosm of ego, fear, mis-perceptions and attachments to what we think or feel our practice should be to reflect our idea of our-self. We journey through the Kleshas on our mat as well as off. What do we need to reduce in our practice on the mat to find authenticity. Where does our detox begin?