Sue Ransom Yoga

Do you listen to yourself?

As I write this we’re moving through January – the first month of a brand new year. At the beginning of the month I noticed increased numbers of people walking along our road. They looked purposeful. They arrived early in the morning, and dressed for it and looking like they meant business. Our road’s on the outskirts of a village near Nelson and takes in a couple of inclines – the perfect short route to regularly incorporate a walk into the day. I feel this increased activity had a lot to do with New Year’s resolutions. Those beneficial changes we aspire to make in our lives in terms of improved fitness and health and the list goes on – diet, relationships, working lives, how we organise our time…

Patterns

In some ways it seems unnecessary to write beneficial before changes. No one aspires to make damaging changes, after all. But I think beneficial is an important word here. Some people like having strict routines in place that they rigidly stick to. We probably all know someone like that. Others baulk at the idea as they like to be free and unconstrained. But whether we’re aware of it or not we all have habits – those repeated ways of behaving, being and thinking. Our patterns. Take movement as an example. Maybe you drive to work, your job involves sitting at a desk, and you do housework and play squash at the weekend. Your body will “specialise” over time in the movements associated with these activities through repetition. If we’re unaware of our habitual patterns we can be unwittingly creating problems for ourselves, as some of them may be damaging.

And that’s where listening comes in. When we listen, pause, notice. That’s an opportunity to become aware of what we’re doing.

Listening

Yoga is all about awareness. On the mat we press pause on our activities. We focus, at least for a little while, on what we’re truly doing, and on ourselves. We slow down. We move intentionally and observe. We move our bodies in ways which are outside of the habitual daily movements – more unusual. We notice. Sometimes, when I do cat stretches in the morning, I realise my spine feels a bit stiff, something I hadn’t noticed before the movement. I’m curious. Why is  that? And then I become aware that I feel like my immune system’s fighting something off – and I know to take care, to respond to that, because I’ve listened to my body. I breathe intentionally and enjoy the delicious sense of calm that brings. I sit quietly and realise, as I meditate, that my mind is preoccupied. I’m ruminating on a problem in a way that’s dominating my thinking. Maybe I can set that aside as I focus on things I need and want to which are more constructive. When we give ourselves space and time to just be – to listen – it’s also an opportunity for creativity – for ideas to surface.

Do you listen to what’s important to you? Sometimes we can be on a certain trajectory, and just keep going. We may feel uneasy about this. Want some kind of change. We may superimpose something on top with the aim of bringing about beneficial change, and then find it’s yet another thing to do, and feel disheartened if we don’t keep it up.

When we listen deeply to ourselves, when we become aware of what’s truly important to us, it gives us the opportunity to integrate beneficial patterns into our lives in sustainable ways. Our actions match our values.

Small Changes

Small changes are good. They are practice for bigger ones. Think of something little and useful that would make life better, that’s in line with your values. An example from my own life is a desire to be more organised so I have time to do the things I want, rather than wasting it unnecessarily. Take car keys. My car keys lived in a variety of places – tucked into handbags or pockets, or put down any old place – the kitchen bench when I came in with a load of groceries, the dressing table if I headed straight to the bedroom when I got home to get changed. I wasted a lot of time looking for them! Then I repurposed The Basket. This sits near the front door, and I’ve got into the habit of putting the car keys straight into it when I come home. Happily other members of the family know this and have also become habituated. If they use the car they tend to pop the keys back in the basket. 99% of the time they’re there. Voila! (Perhaps I’m tempting fate here – I’ll probably be late for a yoga session now because I couldn’t find my car keys!)

So, to go back to the example of all those people I see walking along our road. If you’ve decided to do a daily walk for whatever reason – fitness, to lose weight, for mental health, keep reminding yourself of why you want to do it. Listen deeply to the underlying values that are motivating you, and the beneficial results. And don’t get disheartened. If you decide you’ll walk every day, and then find you have days when other commitments mean you don’t, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed and might as well give up. If this new, beneficial habit you’re creating aligns with your values, remind yourself of that and be kind to yourself. An attitude of playfulness can be helpful here, so you don’t take setbacks too seriously. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Re-set for the next week and try again. Or modify things so they’re more realistically achievable – maybe it’s difficult to walk every day but could you do it four times a week? Two times a week? You’ll be heading in the direction you want to go.

When we become aware of what we’re doing, and give thought to what we truly want, that awareness is a wonderful catalyst, permeating the layers of our being and our lives. This tends to work in two ways. When we become aware of actions, ways of being/thinking which are damaging to us, once they’ve come into focus, they tend to dissolve. Or we can do something to more consciously change them.

I’ll end with these wise words from Dr Ganesh Mohan, “Our goal is to make shifts towards wellbeing into patterns so that they become part of our habitual state.”

If you’d like to create an opportunity to listen deeply to yourself through the beautiful practices of yoga, please contact me for more information on current yoga offerings. Offering yoga in and around Richmond, near Nelson in beautiful Tasman Bay New Zealand.