One of my teachers told me that practicing yoga is like polishing the mirror that you look at yourself through. If the mirror is clouded then you can’t see clearly in its reflection. You can’t see your own behavioural patterns, your reaction patterns, your triggers and buttons. When we act unconsciously we are not really practicing being present and aware.
We often get so used to be driven by the mind and acting from our subconscious that we fail to really see ourselves. We don’t recognise the very behaviours that we are displaying.
Yoga encourages self-reflection and offers a platform to be able to start seeing what patterns and behaviours we are ‘stuck’ in. Without first seeing them we are unable to change them. The daily practice of yoga begins to clear the mirror of our souls so that we can start to see ourselves more clearly.
The patterns that we display on the mat are often the very ones that we need to work on off the mat. These are known as our samskara’s, the habits that have become so deeply ingrained within us that we lose sight of the fact that we are in fact choosing these reactions based on past experiences, but if we decide to look at them then we can in fact change the way that we respond to certain situations.
Begin to start cleaning your own mirror. Start looking at you.
Begin to be the change that you want to see in yourself.
Yogamasti.co.uk
