“Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self.”

- Bhagavad Gita

Thank you, Santa!

I wanted to show you a hilarious Secret Santa gift I got at Christmas - a printed mug of me with the Giant - literal and figurative (as you can see) - of Lifestyle Medicine, Dr Rangan Chatterjee. You might have heard him on his brilliant podcast, “Feel Better, Live More.”

His first episode of 2024 was about journaling, which I loved. Here is the link to the episode: FBLM.

I’ve suggested journaling to patients before and tried a bit myself, but I’ve never managed to be consistent. Dr RC shares a simple method that might help this habit fly.

He gives us three daily prompts that might only take a few minutes, and you could do over your morning cuppa:

• What’s the most important thing I need to do today?
• What one thing am I deeply appreciative of in my life (and be specific)?
• What quality do I want to bring to the world today?

So, I’ve been trying it out, both on paper and even just in my head. They’re good.

What’s so genius about this approach is that they are questions.

Honest Answers, please…

Questions have a way of stirring our minds and guiding us to understand ourselves more intimately. They encourage us to grasp our values, priorities, and aspirations with curiosity and precision, bringing the unconscious to the surface.

Answering questions sounds relatively straightforward. But have you ever found yourself giving an answer that you thought was ‘right’ or reflected the person you’d like to be rather than being honest with yourself? It happens to me all the time! Being truthful and kind to ourselves can be challenging.

But, I’ve been inspired whilst relishing a second Christmas gift, the book “Oh Miriam!” by the incomparable Miriam Margoyles. In one of the early chapters, she tackles a series of interesting questions posed by Marcel Proust in 1890 in her typically unyielding style.

Here are three examples - questions from Proust:

• What is the trait you most deplore in others?
• On what occasion do you lie?
• What is your greatest fear?

What I love about Miriam is her truthfulness. In not comprising authenticity, perhaps she has learned to bypass the so-called Freudian Resistance - the idea that we can (sometimes unconsciously) be dishonest with ourselves so that we don’t have to face up to the sides of us we don’t like to acknowledge.

If I can answer honestly, what might I discover in this attempt of self-awareness? Maybe I affirm that I am loving, kind and diligent, but at the same time, remember that I am obsessive, weird, hateful, and more besides.

Know Thyself

If knowledge is power, is self-knowledge more powerful still?

Svādhyāya, in yoga, is often translated as ‘knowledge of the self’, though other translations include self-reflection, contemplation, introspection or observation of self. And since yoga is a practice intended for spiritual growth, intense self-study is a means to grow awareness to the extent it might ultimately evolve us beyond our limited small selves (ego, mind and so on) and so closer unite us with our True Self.

Paths to self-knowledge may not end in ultimate enlightenment any time soon, but in modern and practical contexts, this tool can help us direct our choices such that we become ‘the cause of our lives, not the effect’ (David Lurey).

So much of yoga (including our physical practice) is self-study, or has the opportunity to be, that it could even be defined as such.

Our regular endeavours in Asana provide a very accessible way to know ourselves better. The lessons we learn on the mat and the introspection we engage in mirror, in numerous ways, the classroom of our lives.

What questions shall we ask ourselves here as we step on the mat?

Here are a few to consider:

• What do I want to achieve today?
• Why do I want to push? Why do I want to stop?
• What is distracting me now?

Shall we practise?