A Little More Joy, Please!

There is a practice in yoga called santosha, contentment. Being content even when things aren’t going “your way” is a tough concept. Can you truly feel content when the world seems to be falling apart? If you move from discontent to content will your fire for action be snuffed out? Would Batman have been able to defend the world from evil if he practiced santosha?

My husband and I were driving across the country to visit our grand children in our black Bat mobile, well, it was more like a black SUV but since we spent most of our time listening to podcasts and brainstorming how to save the world our super hero vibe was keenly alert. While listening to Brené Brown’s book “The Power of Vulnerability”, for the fourth time, I started to move her stories and suggestions into a yoga framework. One of Brené’s practices for being “whole hearted” is setting aside time daily to acknowledge all that you are grateful for - a gratitude practice. For me, I practice listing all that I'm grateful for in my gratitude journal after my morning yoga and meditation, then, when I shut the book the words stay between the covers and my mind goes to the next thing. Hearing Brené talk to me through my car speaker I could see how this practice could be elevated. Taking her gratitude suggestion, I mixed it with the wisdom of Eckhart Tolle and poured it into a yoga framework. This new mixture gave me something new and exciting and transformative. Experientially, each morning, while I have the pen in hand and I’m jotting down my gratitude list I feel a shift, a softening, a movement from rush to calm from wanting to contentment. I feel santosha. So why am I keeping that between the front and back cover of my journal? I started to see I wasn’t using gratitude to it’s full potential.

When we practice gratitude we bring into focus all the things that are good around us. For example: I am grateful I can take a deep breath, I am grateful I can always count on the sun rising each morning, I am grateful my body can fold in half and loves to move. I am also grateful for what brings me joy. I enjoy watching the grass blow in the breeze, listening to the rocks as the waves pull them towards the sea and being able to recognize my husbands footsteps coming up the stairs. All of these things bring me happiness and a sense of peace. Sprinkle joy into gratitude, mix it up, and look around. As we practice this gratitude of joy on an ongoing basis, not just in the morning or at a dinner table but also throughout the day, in our heads, we begin to bring those joyful experiences into focus. We make them more a part of our life. Our joy grows bigger and brighter. The more we notice the more there is to notice. The things that bring us strife start to fade into the back ground. They get pushed into the shadows and the joys get brighter, more vibrant.

In the past when I only scheduling my gratitude practice my journal was filled with the same big things: family, friends, food, shelter sprinkled with some other big things. It is when I started to pull gratitude and joy into consciousness during the day at random times and multiple random times that I was I able to build a world of joy around me. It's like decorating a room with only the things you love. I started to decorate my big gratitudes with the details, the smaller things, those details we miss when they aren’t around. I was able to focus on the squeak of my daughter’s desk chair as she moved, the smell of my sheets, the sound of the squirrels as they scamper around my backyard pepper tree, the way my husbands eyes crinkle when he laughs, my mothers name popping up on my phone screen and the line where the sky meets the sea. When your world Is filled with joys that is what you experience. You don’t see the electrical wires that cross in-front of your view or wonder how to fix that chair’s squeak or prevent the seedlings growing from the squirrel forgotten cache -those fade into the back ground.

It’s like being at a party. If you don’t care for most of the people at a party you will be rather miserable versus a party with lots of people you enjoy being with and a few you don't. Those few are overshadowed. Practicing gratitude is like choosing to talk to the friends you enjoy. It leads to contentment, Santosha.

How do you practice Santosha when the world if falling apart. How do you honor those who don’t have what you have, who don’t have the freedom to criticize their government or whose parents have passed or who can’t get stopped by the police without worrying for their life. One answer is to honor and respect what you have. Place it in your ongoing gratitude practice. Honor and treat with reverence those pieces of your life that bring you joy. Let the joyful vibrations move into the universal consciousness to help create more joy and ripple forward - then march. March and write and explore your path to create the change you feel strongly about. Let the universal energy know that this is the vibe you want. This joy is what you desire for all. You can have both. You can work for social change and love your life.