FLUSH IT OUT... DON'T HOLD ON
|| FLUSH IT OUT… DON’T HOLD ON ||
In Western culture there is a disconnect between the mind and body. We’re not taught to be present in our body and listen to our body to then take appropriate action. From a young age we are taught to control and absorb our emotions. We’re taught to ‘suck it up’, ‘be strong’, ‘act like a grown up’, it’s not deemed ok to cry, shake and release our emotion.
Holding onto negative thoughts and emotions creates negative patterns in our body and actions. It doesn’t do any good for anyone. We get so used to reacting to things in a certain way and dealing with our emotions in a certain way we forget to absorb the situation and deal with the issue in a way that we desire to.
Yoga has helped me and taught me to become more conscious of my emotional patterns and over time and through practice I’ve been able to manage my reactions and thought process due to greater awareness. As B.K.S Iyengar said ‘Yoga is a powerful tool for liberating ourselves from unwanted and ingrained patterns’.
Through our asana practice we can understand our internal nature better, and through breath we integrate the mind and body. Yoga allows us to slow down and recognise the fluctuations in the mind and the holding patterns in the body. Patterns that are ingrained in our nature will not change overnight but yoga allows us to become aware of them and recognise patterns that we want to change or evolve. Over time it is possible to change negative patterns into positive ones and transform the way we see situations.
How we are today is a reflection of our past. How we allow our memory to affect us is key to how we live our lives.
‘Memory is useful if it helps to prepare you for the future, to know whether or not you are moving forward. Use it to develop. Memory is useless if it brings about a repetition of the past. Repetition means to live in memory. If repetition is taking place, then memory is only the means to know whether we are fully aware and evolving. Never think of yesterday. Only go back if you feel that you are doing something, wrong. Use yesterday’s experience as a springboard. Living in the past or longing to repeat previous experiences will only stagnate intelligence.’
A powerful quote by B.K.S Iyengar
So the moral of the story is to practice yoga of course…. But even if it’s not through yoga, work to develop greater awareness and understanding of the body and mind, so we can catch negative thought patterns. Only through greater awareness can we flush out negative thoughts and make room for positive action!