Category Archives: Tapas

Love as a Life Practice

Posted on by
Reply

Post originally written for YYoga blog - http://www.yyoga.ca/blog/love-as-a-life-practice/

Falling in love, finding your true love, meeting your soul mate. In many ways, our culture’s idea of romantic love aligns with a fated, pleasure soaked experience of enviable bliss. Romantic movies consistently reaffirm this image with stories of “meant to be” couples finally overcoming the obstacles that were keeping them apart.

And, then, just as their relationship starts, the movie ends.

I always thought I knew that love wasn’t like it was in the movies. I knew that relationships took work. But I have come to realize that I didn’t know what I thought I knew. I was holding beliefs about romantic love that were more reflective of the movies than I thought.

I thought love was certain. I thought it was hard work, but the kind of hard that doesn’t feel too hard. I thought that when you met the person you would commit to spending your life with that there would be no doubts. I thought deep love was about doing crazy and impulsive things and feeling big, powerful, earthshaking feelings.

The yogic practice of tapas can be defined as learning to live with our most compelling priorities in mind. As I have learned to hold my yoga practice as a constant priority, my understanding of love has slowly shifted alongside. I have come to see love as a practice that requires the same disciplined approach.

In meditation practice, we develop our ability to bring our awareness back to a point of focus. We can also use this skill in the practice of love by consistently committing to bring our attention back to how to best love and respect our partner or friend. The focus of the relationship shifts from, “How I am I feeling about this person?” to “How am I treating this person?” The experience of love shifts from an internal feeling to an external offering. Love becomes a choice, an action, and a way of life. Love becomes less what you feel or don’t feel and more about what you do.

I now think that love is less about certainty and more about commitment, that it can feel unbearably hard, and that this difficultly can fuel doubt. I see more love in the daily commitment to support another person in the messiness of life than in grandiose gestures, and I believe the greatest acts of love are not fueled by the feeling of love but rather a commitment to act with love even in the absence of feeling it.

Love is a choice we face each and every day. To act from a place of love in the face of emotions like fear, anger or jealousy requires a deep commitment to holding love as a priority – but like anything else, choosing love gets easier with practice.

Photo Credit: David R MacKenzie

Committing to Freedom

Posted on by
Reply

Post originally written for YYoga blog - http://yyoga.ca/blog/committing-to-freedom/

My early encounters with the practice of yoga seemed to pour ease into my body, mind and heart. As I fell in love with the practice, an important lesson I was lucky to be taught is that yoga doesn’t “fix” our lives. Yoga doesn’t remove adversity and hardship from our path.

No matter how much yoga you or I do, we are human, and we will still feel loss, grief, heartache, anxiety, depression, fear, shame, anger and loneliness. And some days we will feel these emotions intensely enough that we may start to lose faith in the ways that our practice supports our lives. Maybe we start to consider that yoga isn’t working for us anymore. But these days of doubt are the days we need our practice the most.

In the classical Yoga Sutras, the sage Patanjali offers five observances to bring more ease and joy into our lives. Tapas, the third of these observances, is often translated as fierce discipline, but teacher Judith Lasater shares an interpretation that resonates more with me. She translates tapas as “consistency in striving toward your goals: getting on the yoga mat every day, sitting on the meditation cushion every day—or forgiving your mate or your child for the 10,000th time.”

I used to fear that routines and commitment would make me feel trapped and tied down. I didn’t want to structure my life because I wanted the freedom to creatively shape each moment as I lived it. But as my practice shifted to incorporate the consistency of tapas, so too did my sense of what it means to feel free.

I used to think freedom meant having the flexibility to do anything I wanted to do and, as a result, not knowing what the days and weeks in front of me were going to hold. Through practicing tapas, I discovered that freedom may not mean having all the choice in the world. Instead, it might mean not having to bear the burden of all those choices.

Am I going to practice or meditate today? Or go to the gym? What am I going to eat for dinner? Would this intriguing stranger make a better partner than my current one?

The mind becomes quieter with the decision already made. I have a daily practice that is sustainable through sickness and health, and I never have to spend an ounce of energy debating “Am I going to do my practice today?”

Starting to practice yoga changed my life. Adding the consistency of tapas brought an unexpected dose of ease. It taught me to appreciate the freedom that commitment can bring.

Tapas, or “Just Do It” Yoga

Posted on by
Reply

Just Do It.

Source: Nike Logo

Pop culture references aside, “Just Do It” is a powerful mantra for inspiring action.

Over the past few weeks, I have unsuccessfully been trying to get back on the blog writing bandwagon, so I’m invoking the ”Just Do It” mantra to motivate myself into posting something on my blog – even if it is the worst post I have ever written!

A few months ago, my grandma went into the hospital. My writing (along with almost everything else in my life) was put aside because I wanted to spend as much time by her side as possible. I lost my grandma at the end of March and celebrated her life with family and friends in mid-April, and though I have had more time since then, I still haven’t been able to write.

I have a long list of ideas for blog posts, but my written words haven’t been flowing.

And, I had a similar experience with flow on my yoga mat today.

Most days, I could spend hours doing yoga on my own. I love exploring sequencing, playing with different postures and taking in what ever lessons my practice has to offer. But, today I was stumped – a practice wasn’t flowing from me.

My solution: I grabbed the latest copy of Yoga Journal and followed the home practice.

I still didn’t find my usual intuitive flow, but I stayed on my mat.

And, in this commitment to staying on my mat lies my understanding of the yogic practice of tapas.

In the Yoga Sutras, the Indian sage Patanjali outlines an eight-limbed path of yoga, and in the second limb (the niyamas), he offers five observances to bring more joy and ease into our lives. Tapas, the third niyama, is commonly translated as “fierce discipline,” but Judith Lasater offers a definition that really resonates with me. She describes tapas as “consistency in striving toward your goals: getting on the yoga mat every day, sitting on the meditation cushion every day—or forgiving your mate or your child for the 10,000th time.”

My basic personal tapas practice is a daily 15 minute meditation. I sit for 15 minutes every day – no matter how much I may not want to or feel like I don’t have the time to.  In her book Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life, Charlotte Bell offers the suggestion that yoga and meditation practitioners commit to doing five minutes each day.

I share this suggestion to emphasize that the practice of tapas demands consistency, but it does not require an abundance of time.

With the often paralyzing presence of choice in our day-to-day lives, tapas is a committed directing of our energy towards actions that support our well-being – even when we are not in the “mood” to do things that support our well-being.

It’s a commitment to just doing it – every day.

Whatever your “it” may be.