MARCH 25, 2012

Embody The Present & Mindful Communication

Posted by Dorothy under Community Interests, Interesting Reads, Natural Highs, Philosophyno responses

Early last year, I had the opportunity to practice some yoga in a studio called Brezze Yoga in East Croydon, London. I have since become a subscriber of their weekly newsletter which arrives in my mailbox every Friday. I could not find the contents of their writings on their website, therefore I have no url to link you to these interesting  yoga philosophies. Hence, I am sharing these on my blog.

Embody The Present

Our culture values productivity and speed. Before we know it, we’re embroiled in a perpetual battle with time, missing out on our connections to our deeper selves and to others. If your busy schedule leaves you feeling drained and depleted, maybe it’s time to reevaluate your relationship with time.

Mindfulness of time is rooted in the philosophy described in the Yoga Sutra—particularly the concepts of self-study, honesty, and non-grasping.  Practicing these concepts together can help bring you into harmony with time and allow you to enjoy the present moment. Look inward and get to know yourself better.  Ask yourself questions like – besides eating and sleeping, how do I allocate my time in a typical 24-hour period? Do the activities on which I spend most of my time nourish me, or do they feel obligatory? Your answers will help identify the activities that are intrinsically important to you as well as the pace that’s most compatible with your own organic rhythms. Self-study opens up your truths. Now, try to acknowledge and honor your truths, even the uncomfortable ones!  Eventually, your truth will illuminate what’s possible and what’s not.  Let go of the need to achieve more.  When you can stop grasping, even if only for a little while, you can access that state of flow, remain in the present and enjoy and harvest the time that is available to you.  Practicing these concepts will help cultivate awareness to the moment.

Each and every moment holds the potential for a transformative experience of time. Don’t be tied down to that stressful clock—embody the present.

Mindful Communication

The power of words isn’t lost on anyone – just think of the pleasure you feel when someone pays you a sincere compliment, or the discomfort of realizing you’ve spilled a secret you’d promised to keep.  Words and the energy they carry make or break friendships and careers; they define us as individuals and even as cultures.  We know this, and yet we often let our words flow out more or less unmediated, like random pebbles tossed into a lake.  Sometimes, it’s only when the ripples spread and cause waves, and the waves rush back and splash us, that we stop to think about the way we speak.

The sages of yoga obviously understood the human tendency to run off at the mouth, because many texts of the inner life, from the Upanishads and the Yoga Vasistha to the Bhagavad Gita, counsel us to use words carefully.  The Buddha made right speech one of the pillars of his Noble Eightfold Path. On the simplest level, these sages point out that unnecessary speaking wastes energy that could be devoted to self-inquiry and transformative action.  More important though, is the power that words have to change the communal atmosphere, to cause joy or pain, and to create a climate that fosters truth or falsity, kindness or cruelty.

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