It is so very easy to get caught up in our day to day lives, to become focused on the dramas and on what’s not working or on what you want to be but it isn’t here yet or perhaps obsessing over what’s not right about current circumstances and wanting things fixed before the lessons have had time to present themselves and run their course
In my own personal impatience, I am clearly reminded to go back to my spiritual and yogic roots, back to the foundations of yoga philosophy, to go back to the 5000-year-old wisdom that guided me to make incredible transformations in my life. By simply studying and doing our best to apply the teachings of these ancient philosophies to current day situations can make all the difference in our daily lives! We all have the innate ability to transform our lives, we just have to make a conscious choice to show up differently than yesterday.
How do you make a conscious choice to show up differently?
Today, as I move through impatience and fear, I am reminded of one of my favorite niyamas (yogic ways of living) from the Yoga Sutras, santosha. Santosha, simply put, is to have contentment and to find equanimity in all things.
What takes us out of contentment is our own fears, our worries and projections on the past and on the future. Anything that takes us out of the present moment and identifies us with the daily dramas and issues of our lives takes us out of the state of our Divine being and we lose contact with the “I AM”, the Divine presence within each one of us.
Santosha reminds us to be patient and to TRUST. It reminds me of a quote from Wayne Dyer. “The right circumstances and the right people are already here and will show up on time.” That’s right, santosha asks us to TRUST that all is well and that we are exactly where we need to be at any given moment in time.
Slow down. Be present.
As I look at my own life I draw inspiration to live this not only from the teachings for the great Yogic texts and spiritual masters, but I also look right in my own household, to my beautiful 7-year old daughter, Avery. She arrived on this earth in large part to wake me up to the spiritual path and she teaches us every single day.
One of her “gifts” that she brings is what we have coined in our house as “Avery Time”. This involves Avery taking her own sweet time in completing just about everything – yes, it really can take 2 hours to get dressed or complete a simple page of math problems! Perhaps in those moments a fabulous book or the tea party she’s having with her American Girl dolls has much greater priority to her than our own agenda of getting out of the house on time so we adults can hurry up and get our day started. Sometimes it’s so easy to get frustrated with this, especially when I have “somewhere important” to be soon.
But what we lose when forget to give ourselves our own “Avery Time” is the simple the joy of the present moment, being fully engaged in whatever you are doing without a care in the world for anyone else’s agenda or schedules being imposed on the joy of the NOW.
Santosha, contentment asks us to be in JOY, NOW. While easier said than done, why not make it a daily practice to slow down and be in gratitude for whatever IS?
So, slow down, trust… everything is gonna be all right. That’s it, just trust that all is in Divine order! Simple and easy, right? Maybe not but a great reminder for us all to let go and offer everything up for the highest and greatest good.
