April 2024 | Yield

Feb 23

Written By MOSA

NOTE: This was originally published as part of my newsletter in April 2024. Subscribe to my newsletter to receive the next Om Letter direct to your inbox once a month.

This past month I completed the first of my three one-to-one assessment lessons that will allow me to graduate from my four-year Feldenkrais teacher training. It was so wonderful to see a few familiar faces swing by our open clinics and I was so deeply grateful to everyone who offered their precious time to us.

After each lesson we discussed the choices we made and - in true Feldenkrais fashion - rather than receiving feedback from our tutors we were asked to provide it ourselves. Naturally, most of us are much more capable of objectivity when we direct our critiques towards others. Looking at our own challenges and shortcomings in a neutral way is a tricky endeavour.

In class our recent exploration of the eight limbs of yoga has led us to the second limb, the *niyamas* - our ‘inner observances.’ These represent the ways in which we might notice and shape our own behaviours over time.
Encountering the eight limbs of yoga for the first time we might expect breath work, meditation or the physical *asana* practice to sit at the top of the pecking order, but instead we’re asked to address our own character before anything else.
The eight limbs are designed as a sequential system that guides us towards *samadhi* (an inner awakening).

There is an internal logic to moving from one limb to the next, but as is often the case when journeying anywhere - detours are inevitable.
It has always struck me that *Patanjali* asks us to examine our character before we expose ourselves to the more practical applications of yoga in order to protect us and others from the potential misuse of these practices.
If we carry greed, selfishness or aggression in us, if we are untruthful or prone to excess, this will most certainly distort how we receive and use (or abuse) the remaining limbs of yoga.
The *yamas* and *niyamas* deal in repatterning and retraining our mind and our emotions so that we might eventually free ourselves from being governed by them. This in turn allows us to eventually see past them so that we might experience life without their interference.

An untrained mind immediately decides whether it likes or dislikes something as it encounters it in the world. The synapses of the brain quickly create a chemically ‘wired’ pattern of reaction (wanting or avoiding), which becomes more and more ingrained in us over time.
Rather than asking us to master being a ‘good person,’ the *niyamas* ask us to make a conscious effort to substitute an existing pattern with a new one, reprogramming our synapses over time to respond differently. They give us a way to discover and work with our reactive patterns so that we can eventually respond (rather than react) to the experiences of our lives.

Hopefully I’ll see you in class as we work our way through the final three niyamas over the next few weeks or, in my upcoming workshop (details below) over the bank holiday weekend.

With love,

OM x