May I Be Kind

Compassion.  It's the one take-away word that stayed with me when I sat with 10,000 other well-behaved Melbournians listening to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama.  He said many other poignant and insightful things that night, but compassion was at the core of all of it.

This past week in classes, I opened with the breath of compassion.  As you inhale, you breathe compassion to yourself and as you exhale, you send compassion out into the world.  Further to this practice, we anchored with a mantra or statement which was on the inhale, "may I be kind to myself" and the exhale, "may I be kind to others".

So what does compassion look like in action?  Specifically, what does it look like when you are practicing compassion for yourself?  Part of this is rooted in the yoga sutras of Patanjali, where the first facet of the eight-limbed path is the yama-Ahimsa.  Ahimsa is often translated as non-violence, but simply putting "non" in front of violence doesn't necessarily denote its truest meaning. 

Nischala Joy Devi in her book The Secret Power of Yoga describes Ahimsa as "embracing reverence and love for all, we experience oneness" and says it "is a vast and continuous practice".  When we have the intention of holding reverence for all beings, including ourselves, then we are living from a yogic perspective.  As soon as we move away from this towards a more harmful way, we are no longer practicing yoga.

This includes eliminating violent acts against ourselves.  You might be thinking, "I don't act in a violent way towards myself...I'd know that I was hurting myself".  However, this can be subtle self-sabotage that has been such a part of our lives through childhood and cultural influences that we simply don't recognize it as being harmful.

Personal acts of violence might include obvious acts, but in a more subtle way things such as:  over/under eating; drinking too much alcohol; over/under sleeping; pushing yourself into yoga postures you're not quite ready to do; and toxic thoughts about yourself such as I'm too fat/thin, not good enough, uncoordinated, clumsy, inflexible or don't know enough.    We can harm ourselves through thought and action, ways that simply don't support us.  For many people simply saying "no" (to those who tend to have too much on their plate) can be a first step in self-kindness.  

It's one thing to recognize when we aren't acting from a place of self-love, but can you recognize when you are?  Posing these questions might help to shed some light onto your higher self:

When I am kind to myself, how am I acting?  How am I speaking?  What am I thinking?  How am I being?

When we begin to fully immerse ourselves into the experience of love for self, it can't help but ooze out and away from us.  Love begins within, true love that is unfiltered and bubbles up from the soulful inner voice.  When we truly hold compassion for self, holding for others becomes more familiar and easier. 

When we tap into this source, we are fully engaged in our yoga practice.  The Dalai Lama kept it simple...compassion.  If we practice it, we can experience its collective power.