You are not your thoughts...

Take your yoga off the mat through the sublime practice of svadhyaya.

Sva, is the Sanskrit for the human soul and Adhyaya, means lesson. Svadhyaya is the yogic observance of studying the Self, the self with a capital S - who we are underneath all of the doubts, criticisms, fears and judgements.

In today’s society we are now encouraged to be ‘true to our self’, to live the life we want to live and go after all of the things we desire. But how do we know what we want? How do we discern between what we want and what society expects from us? How can we distinguish between our behaviours that are aligned with our truth, and those which are a result of our conditioning?

The answer is surprisingly simple – become the observer of your experience, watch how you behave and witness your thought processes.

You can begin this exploration whilst on your yoga mat. As you practice, pay attention to your breathing – is it deep or shallow? How does your breath feel? Notice how you feel physically – where are you holding tension? When does this tension arise? And what could be the cause of it?

Now go a stage further and watch your thoughts during your yoga practice. When things get challenging, are you able to resolve to stay steady or do you succumb to the urge to distract yourself? If you don’t ‘perform’ in the way you expect yourself to or the yoga pose doesn’t look quite how you’d like, how do you react? Which thoughts are persistent and a little trickier to let go of? As you go in to your imagination, what are you trying to avoid? What triggers you to be encouraging or critical towards yourself?

As you are observing, try to dis-identify with whatever comes up – you may be thinking angry thoughts but YOU are not angry. As often as needed, remind yourself that you are not your thoughts, but are simply experiencing the mind thinking.

To get a true sense of our Self, we must take svadhyaya off the yoga mat. Once we have gotten used to self-study during our yoga practice we can now apply it to the rest of our day. Become the witness of your behaviours and actions and begin to question them. Scrutinise your triggers to understand what is the cause of them. As you get to know yourself better, you will be able to discern which thoughts and feelings come from your true Self and those which arise from your ego. You start to shed the layers of trauma and conditioning that are holding you back from living your most spectacular life.

The method is simple and everyone from beginners to advanced yogis can practice it. However, disentangling yourself from your experience takes committed practice. It requires discipline and you will have to be completely honest with yourself whilst refraining from judging yourself harshly. But I promise, the treasures of this practice are so rich that the effort will be truly worth it. You will be fascinated by what you discover and you will be completely free to live a life of unlimited joy!