Contentment

     *Below is Tamar's blog post of the week. 
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Thank you and Namaste.

                                                                       Source: Uploaded by user via Bethany on Pinterest

     Sometimes I wish I had a quiet forest sanctuary to which I could escape whenever the stresses of modern life overwhelmed me. The one pictured above seems like it would do the trick, thank you very much. Rather than long for what I don't have, however, my latest efforts have been to practice contentment instead. Niyama (Personal Observances) is the second of the Eight Limbs of Yoga. One element of niyama is Santosa. Translated, santosa means contentment, also known as being happy with what we have. This isn't always easy in practice.

                                                                            Source: Uploaded by user via James on Pinterest

We want things, we want to be better, feel better, live better, eat better, work better, and we want to do it all faster...better yet, we want it to happen now. Improvement is by no means a bad thing, and why label anything really "bad" anyway? However, when our focus is constantly on the future, on what could-should-or would be better, "if only..." then we are cheating ourselves out of the here and now. We aren't able to enjoy or simply be content with where we currently are and what we currently have; besides in simplest terms isn't what we have something and aren't we at least somewhere? Again, that may seem like an over-simplification, but really isn't what we have and where are worth anything at all? Of course! Are we so ungrateful as to forget how much less we could have (and many others do) or how much worse a place we could be in? I know that I have been hugely guilty of this. The point isn't to be guilty though, the point is simply to become aware. We are never stuck in any mindset, as soon as we are aware of it we have the power to change it.

      So here's the problem with waiting for things to be better: the future quite quickly becomes the present (maybe it doesn't always feel like that, but it's true, it happens...eventually always.) Tomorrow is today's future, for goodness sakes. If today we are only focused on ways that tomorrow could be better then today is nothing but a waiting game. When tomorrow comes, will it be better? If it's just about the same as yesterday, will we experience more discontent? Those can be some pretty heavy questions to ask yourself when you really think about it, so just mull it over a bit...that's all that I'm trying to do. I'm letting those questions sit with me awhile, becoming aware, and then I'm figuring out what the heck to do about it. My guess is that no matter what I try, I will probably have to try again and again before it feels really, truly a part of my perception.

                                                                              Source: piccsy.com via Karen on Pinterest

   

Trying and then trying again...and then again...and oops- I-slipped-into-my-old-thinking-let-me-try-that-again, is all a part of the process. It's OK. Really. I always tell my yoga students "Begin where you are" because there's really no other place to start from right? You can't start from where you want to be, so start from where you are and re-start as many times as you have to, just don't give up that's all.

     Today I am trying to appreciate where I am and what I have. I am not looking ahead or behind. I am working on being content with the now. As I enjoy the now, the rest will fall into place. The best part is that when I get to that other place, the place I've been longing for, I'll smile knowing that many of the days leading up to that moment were not spent waiting and whining, but were spent with contentment. I will find that I didn't have to build a fancy tree house to escape to, because my little Cape with a boat-load of unfinished household projects was a perfectly welcome retreat all on it's own.

     That's what I'm going for anyway...practicing contentment. Here's to beginning where we are, enjoying it, feeling it, maybe even LOVING it and seeing where that leads.

Namaste,

Tamar