New Year, Fresh Perspective

Hey everyone, we did it, we made it to 2021!! The never-ending year has finally ended and it’s cause for celebration! 2020 was a year like no other, with trials and hardships not previously seen in our lifetimes. So now that the new year is here, we can put all those troubles behind us and live happily ever after, right? Right?!

Well….maybe.

Yes, it’s 2021, but most of us still have the same external disturbances that were here in 2020, with our primary disturbance, the COVID-19 pandemic still raging. But does that mean we throw our hands up in the air and give up? Or keep trudging along, waiting for these external circumstances to change? Our yoga teachings tell us no, heck no!

At its core, yoga philosophy teaches us the importance of dismantling unhelpful, habituated patterns in our lives. Habituated patterns can obscure the way we perceive our surroundings and provoke strong emotional reactions to our external circumstances. These automatic and habitual reactions are, in yogic terms, known as samskaras. Samskaras subconsciously dictate our behavior and obscure the way we see the world. Samskara literally translates as “groove, mark or impression”, is typically formed when we are young as a result of an occurrence of an event in our life that left a strong and often negative impression. Some samskaras are helpful, i.e. don’t touch the hot burner or you’ll get burned. Others are not so helpful, i.e. don’t speak up and say what you really think or you’ll be punished. And the more often we repeat a certain reactionary behavior which is based on a long-held samskara, the deeper the groove becomes and the more difficult it is to see the world as it truly is unfolding.

2020 was one heck of a year and has almost certainly dealt each of us it’s fair share of samskaras. With a truly authentic yoga practice, however, we are offered a way out. Yoga invites us to step out of our minds and out of our reactions to see things as they are, no filters. So give it a shot and start small: that person who’s driving 40mph in a 50mph might not be so aggravating after all!

Happy New Year!

P.S. If you’re interested in learning more about how yoga can change your life, our YTT might be for you! please reach out to us, via email, social media or phone ❤️

​KVM