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Meditation for an election year

by Viki Distin

Have no fear, there's no agenda here. That's the point of this month’s newsletter — to free yourself of agendas and over reactions.

This freedom will help open new perspectives. Yoga can keep hearts open, minds clear, and bodies free from unnecessary tension during the weeks of election stress.

Have you ever had the experience, while engaging in a political argument, of your mouth becoming dry, hair standing on end, breath quickening, or a clenching of your jaw, belly, or buttocks? What’s happening on the physiological level while those darts shoot from your eyes?

You are going into a "fight or flight" protective state that involves the side of the nervous system intended for emergencies. What are you trying to protect? Psychologically, you are protecting your ego or sense of self. The ego involves many things, including your values, beliefs, and opinions. In many cases, you have spent a lifetime building this idea of yourself.

From a yogic point of view, there's no one true perspective. Every perspective is relative to others. It isn’t un-yogic to have an opinion or commitment, but it becomes a source of suffering when we attach to a particular agenda or attitude. It becomes a problem when we’re certain that our position is the only cool, righteous, and just viewpoint. The problem continues when we try to recruit people to be like us. This ego-driven perspective is actually a form of violence.

All our judgments, feelings, and desires are mental formations developed by the many different aspects of our being, including conditioning. Because of this conditioning, we adopt a particular perspective. It's essential to remember that this perspective is limited and subject to change.

The fact that things are in a constant state of flux is helpful to contemplate when we get stuck in our small, and sometimes petty, agendas. If we stay within the box of only what we know, we cling to patterns, which can limit our full potential. We will never come to experience freedom.

This attachment to the familiar is caused by our craving for continuity. We feel safe within the constraints of our self-constructed environments. We over-identify with both the external environment of our homes and jobs and the internal environment of our ideals and beliefs. This confinement removes us from the flow of life.

The practice of yoga overcomes concerns and builds the stamina and courage to travel to uncertain territories. If we can learn from our yoga practice to step out of our cozy ideas of the known and open ourselves to new ways of being then we can begin to be free. In the yoga postures we are moving the body and mind in unique ways to create new neural pathways and offer new perspectives. Eventually we can become free of perspective. A good mantra to have is "all I know is that I do not know." It’s healthy to question our ideologies and be willing to have it all wrong.

One comment frequently made about Cascade Yoga Studio is that each teacher is different and that even under the same teacher the practice is often fresh and new. I appreciate that we are able to combine different perspectives to teach about freedom and flux in order to open the body-mind.

Over the next days, as you engage in political debate and watch commentaries, notice if there is some heat or "charge" in your body-mind. If you can become a witness to this reaction, then you are beginning the journey of dismantling the conditioning or habitual patterns that bind you. This requires some practice, of course, and some savvy, to be able to watch the subtleties that can be causing inhibiting attitudes. Sometimes the little judgments, criticisms, or unkind thoughts are subtle, but still do not serve us.

There are many ways to shift perspective in the short run. Go for a walk, read something inspirational, or phone a friend. However, in the long run if we do not get to the root of these negative charges, then like weeds, they will grow back. Yoga aims to get at the root by drawing awareness to the negative patterns and then applying the antidote by working deeply within the central nervous system.

We have the potential to be like a diamond that has many sides and therefore able to reflect a brilliant light. As we become multi-faceted we are able to reflect more light and radiance that has the somatic experience of freedom in body-mind. This seems like a good thing to cultivate since we live in America — the land of the free.