One
of the qualities that Lakshmi invites us to explore in sufficiency.
Enough-ness. When you live in a culture of excess how do you know
you have enough? I read a study a while back about childhood obesity and
children’s eating habits. In it, children in many different countries were
asked how they knew when they were done eating. The majority of children from
Eastern cultures replied when they were full. In Western cultures the
overwhelming response was “when my plate is empty” or “when there is no
more food left”. We have become so used
to over-consuming we have lost the inner compass that tells us when we are
actually satisfied and we end up having to look outside ourselves and use
external markers to try to figure it out. This of course spills over from
food culture into every aspect of our lives including habits of work, exercise,
over-scheduling, and consuming in general. When you live in a very
affluent area this becomes an even more challenging path to navigate as we are
lucky to have so much available to us.
Brene
Brown says “When we value our lives based on how much we produce, when
exhaustion is a status symbol and busy-ness earns us recognition how can we
value rest and play time?” When is
enough enough?? Life in this culture
is intense and it is easy to convince ourselves through the prism of
mental scarcity that we aren’t going to have enough of anything (since there is
always more), so we cling and hoard and consume more and
more. It’s a vicious cycle, and one admittedly I find myself and my
children in often. And yet I know that when we identify with our lack rather
than our abundance we contract and we cling. We start to see the whole world from that viewpoint and we forget that the universe is ever-expanding. That
there is always enough of all the things we seek for all beings
everywhere.
Because
what is it we really need enough of? For me: enough courage, enough inner
strength, enough wisdom, enough energy, enough love, enough happiness, enough
peace. The really lasting knowing of which comes from looking inside rather than outside
ourselves. At some point in our spiritual evolution hopefully we
realize we don’t need more and more of anything. Instead, having just enough is
plenty, and when we take a step back and look at our lives through the lens of
sufficiency most of us see that we are already there.
Yoga
practice re-attunes us to our inner compass. Lakshmi's invitation is to
recognize the fullness, the beauty, the wisdom, the joy, and the radiance of
who we already are. It awakens us to faith in an inner fullness that
tells us that we have enough. When we practice with self-love and
self-compassion we see that we are enough.
Since we live in a culture of chronic over-spenders, over-eaters, over-achievers this can be really hard to do, but sufficiency means that you don’t have to do it all. Mostly because aren’t you tired of being perfect all the time? I am.
Since we live in a culture of chronic over-spenders, over-eaters, over-achievers this can be really hard to do, but sufficiency means that you don’t have to do it all. Mostly because aren’t you tired of being perfect all the time? I am.
Off the mat:
Choose
one aspect of your life to practice recognizing sufficiency in. Two
examples are:
Eating:
Chew every bite 30-40 times. Put your fork down between bites.
Close your eyes after every few bites to notice if you feel full. When
you do, stop eating regardless of how much is left on the plate.
Work:
Take a piece of paper and fold it into thirds. At the start of every day,
make three lists with the headings: Have To, Should, and Only If I Have Time.
After finishing your "Have To" list, evaluate whether you have time
and energy to get to the next list with full awareness and presence. If
not, save it for the list for tomorrow.
On the Mat:
We
started practice in my classes this week in a restorative pose, because one
thing I know is that none of us get enough rest! We practiced antara kumbhaka (retaining the full breath in) as a way of
experiencing the fullness of our lives. We remember that there is always enough
breath, it doesn’t run out, it’s always available for us to draw on in a deeper
way, just like the deep wellspring of abundance that is our true nature.
For the Anusara Junkies:
Open
To Grace: Align (the foundation of the pose) to align with all that is full and
abundant in your life.
Settle
into the breath and allow yourself to settle into “what is”, knowing it is
enough.
Muscular
Energy: As your muscles embrace your bones, embrace your life just as it is,
knowing we have enough wisdom, energy, love, happiness, etc., etc.
Work
at 100% effort – not 99%, not 101% - let 100% be enough and stop there without
over-doing.
Inner
Spiral: Move the inner thighs back and apart, expanding on the fullness that
already exists inside you.
Move
inner thighs back and widen your experience of what is already there and full
in your life.
Outer
Spiral: Outer spiral balances inner spiral – the poses wouldn’t work if we just
kept widening and widening – so feel inside when you’ve expanded sufficiently
and anchor your tailbone to say “enough”.
Organic
Energy: Let the beauty of your pose radiate from a deep feeling of sufficiency,
feeling its perfection in whatever form it takes.
Whatever
you have to offer is enough – let it the pose sparkle with the radiance of you
just as you are.
For those who loved the poem we read in class this week:
For those who loved the poem we read in class this week:
Enough
by
Danna Faulds
It's
enough to offer love,
no
matter how imperfectly
received
or given. It's
enough
to try and fail
at a
difficult task; enough
to
fall and rise, stumble,
fall
again, sigh, and start
to
walk, however slowly,
in
the direction the soul
points.
it's enough to
seek
peace and find pain,
to
gain nothing but a
vision
of truth, and take
the
long route home.
It's
enough to feel
temptation,
the dance
of
the senses, the hot
pull
of desire; enough
to
call on God, walk
through
fire, sleep and
cry
and fear or welcome
dying.
It's enough to be
and
breathe, to feel the
touch
of wind on skin.
It's
enough to take the
day
as it comes, to watch
the
ripples on the lake as
the
rock sinks to the
bottom,
to see the wild
reflection
of the surface
calm
into a mirror once
again.
it's enough to
hear
the voice of fear
and
hide - or seek it out
and
face the shame or
shadows.
It's enough
to
set out to tame demons
and
watch them multiply
instead.
it's enough to
be
buffeted by the winds
of
change and not blown
over.
I and you and
all
of us, more than enough.