Happiness starts with self-awareness or What I learned in yoga class
I need to share something I learned in yoga class this morning. First, let me give you the visual of me in yoga class. I am the one who can never get my knee to 90 degrees, who needs blocks to do triangle pose and who sits and watches while the rest of the class does handstands. I'm terrible at yoga but I go to class because I really like the teacher, Amanda. She picks a theme for each class and talks about it as she pushes us to take painful poses.
Today she talked about the bliss of self knowledge. In a yoga context, that involves muscle energy and organic energy which I don't fully understand but which seem to make the poses more painful and also more powerful.
While I was not doing handstands, I began to think about the bliss of self-knowledge in relation to being a working mother. I think that bliss, or happiness, is the product of living a life in harmony with who you truly are. Of course, to do that, you need to know who you are which is where the self-knowledge comes in.
It's hard to shut out the expectations and demands that your family, your work and society have for you. There are a lot of them and we bump into them every time we turn around. It is not easy, I know, but you need to find a way to shut out all the noise long enough to hear you own voice. Maybe it's taking a walk alone or journaling or soaking in a bubble bath or meditating. Figure out how and what time of day you do your best thinking and reserve a few minutes of that time to try this.
Imagine your perfect life. What is your day like in that life? Do you go to work? If so, what do you do at work? What is your interaction like with your children? What about your partner? How do you talk to each other?
If you are like me, this is an iterative process. I couldn't figure it out all in one go. In fact, it took me months of thinking and amending. It's like an oil painting that you work on for a long time. You create the sketch, then change the sketch. You begin to paint, then adjust the colors. Maybe you even scrap it and start over.
It's not easy but it is worth it. Because, unless you know who you are, what you enjoy and what is truly important to you, you can never find happiness.
I go back to yoga even though it hurts and I'm bad at it because I love the way I feel when I'm done.
Today she talked about the bliss of self knowledge. In a yoga context, that involves muscle energy and organic energy which I don't fully understand but which seem to make the poses more painful and also more powerful.
While I was not doing handstands, I began to think about the bliss of self-knowledge in relation to being a working mother. I think that bliss, or happiness, is the product of living a life in harmony with who you truly are. Of course, to do that, you need to know who you are which is where the self-knowledge comes in.
It's hard to shut out the expectations and demands that your family, your work and society have for you. There are a lot of them and we bump into them every time we turn around. It is not easy, I know, but you need to find a way to shut out all the noise long enough to hear you own voice. Maybe it's taking a walk alone or journaling or soaking in a bubble bath or meditating. Figure out how and what time of day you do your best thinking and reserve a few minutes of that time to try this.
Imagine your perfect life. What is your day like in that life? Do you go to work? If so, what do you do at work? What is your interaction like with your children? What about your partner? How do you talk to each other?
If you are like me, this is an iterative process. I couldn't figure it out all in one go. In fact, it took me months of thinking and amending. It's like an oil painting that you work on for a long time. You create the sketch, then change the sketch. You begin to paint, then adjust the colors. Maybe you even scrap it and start over.
It's not easy but it is worth it. Because, unless you know who you are, what you enjoy and what is truly important to you, you can never find happiness.
I go back to yoga even though it hurts and I'm bad at it because I love the way I feel when I'm done.
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