By JACCI GRUNINGER, MS, C-IAYT, ERYT500
Los Alamos
The second Niyama on Patanjali’s 8-fold path is Santosha or contentment.
This Niyama asks us to fall in love with ourselves and our life as we are and it is right now. If it’s a brilliant New Mexico day, we are content, if it is a snowy, rainy, icy day, we are content.
Of course, here in Los Alamos, I enjoy a gray and rainy day. But you get my meaning right?
Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, Tik Tok, magazines, ads, store aisles, books etc. sell us a bill of discontent. These social media platforms and our buy, buy, buy, beat the Jones, look better, feel better, get skinnier society does not help us out when it comes to the idea of contentment.
“Compulsive comparing, of course, only leads to debilitating cases of what Nietzsche called Lebensneid, or “life envy”: the certainty that somebody else is much luckier than you, and that if only you had her body, her husband, her children, her job, everything would be easy and wonderful and happy.
(A therapist friend of mine defines this problem simply as “the condition by which all of my single patients secretly long to be married, and all of my married patients secretly long to be single.”)
With certainty so difficult to achieve, everyone’s decisions become an indictment of everyone else’s decisions, and because there is no universal model anymore for what makes “a good man” or “a good woman,” one must almost earn a personal merit badge in emotional orientation and navigation in order to find one’s way through life anymore.” –Committed: A Love Story, by Elizabeth Gilbert
And, add to this the political climate, global climate, mass shootings etc. how can we even think about being content?
The Yamas and Niyamas ask us to find our authentic self, to be true to what we think, feel and notice. If you are angry, be with anger. If you are sad, be with sadness. It is not about always being happy. It is about feeling all of life and acknowledging the feelings we have.
Santosha includes:
Contentment or acceptance of this moment as it is;
Accepting ourselves and our situation as we work to improve them;
Using the truth of this moment as the starting point for change or dialogue; and
Understanding that change is slow and best when well thought out.
Contentment is not passive or having a doormat mentality. Santosha is about leaning into all of your experiences. When I teach yoga or work with clients I often ask them to lean into what they are feeling, noticing and experiencing. Santosha isn’t about being a pollyanna or always pretending to be happy. It is looking at the root of issues, accepting how things are right now and making conscious choices to create change.
In your practice and daily life consider the following to work with Santosha:
Free yourself from the “bigger and more is better” mentality.
Let go of comparing yourself to others.
Question your thoughts and feelings – ask what is true here?
Practice gratitude.
Lean into and appreciate even the unpleasant experiences.
Let go of preferences and enjoy life as it presents itself right now.
Jacci Gruninger is a Certified Yoga Therapist and Thai Yoga Massage Therapist. She has been teaching for over two decades and spent 12 of those years training yoga teachers for the Pranakriya School of Yoga Healing Arts. She regularly helps clients manage the ups and downs of life with yoga, meditation, breathwork and bodywork. Her Yoga Therapy Center is located at 190 Central Park Square #212. For her in person and online teaching schedule and information on her other services, visit www.yogawithjacci.com.