Soul of Yoga

28/01/2024

Here is an effortless way to withstand/ quickly bounce back from any challenging situation that doesn’t require any time or discipline...

Oftentimes people are comparing resilience to a muscle that we need to train. Here is a completely different way of viewing it, that might help you to skyrocket your resilience in a very easy (lazy) way..

And all it requires really is a change in perspective, not a stronger “resilience” muscle. Let me explain..

But first of all, what is resilience? Oxford dictionary suggests “the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties”. What is the opposite of resilience?

We let life’s “difficulties” bog us down. How do we do that?

Let’s look at an analogy. If there is a strong wind and I try to walk against it, you can say I will have a hard time. If however I am a kite surfer I will enjoy going with the wind. What is the difference?

In one situation I am in resistance and in the other situation I am in total alignment or acceptance.

To my best understanding, when we face a “hard situation” in life, our suffering comes from two sources: One, the situation itself and two, from our level of resistance towards the situation.

Now you can argue about the exact contribution of these two. Eckhart Tolle, Buddha and other spiritual masters might say that our suffering comes 100% from our internal resistance only and not from the situation itself.

In my experience it is for sure the lion’s share (80%+). Once we know this, all we have to do in order to stop creating suffering for ourselves (in the form of stress, imbalance, etc.) is to be in acceptance. Now there are a few misconceptions that make “being in acceptance” look very weak, so let’s look at the main one..

Acceptance does not mean we accept that the situation will always be the way it is right now. Maybe not even five minutes from now. All we accept is the present moment. There is a tremendous strength that comes from that inner alignment.

And whatever potential the future holds for the situation, we are most likely to contribute towards it in an impactful way, when we come from this place of inner peace and strength..

15/01/2024

There are two approaches to experiencing clarity & peace of mind in my experience. One seems logically to make sense, but often doesn’t work. The other is less intuitive but works remarkably well.

A quick analogy: What do you do when you are disturbed by a smelling garbage in your house? What you probably don’t do is to start digging into it and see why it is smelling. It is our understanding that it is the nature of the garbage to start smelling after some time.

More likely you would take it out and empty it. You keep the garbage outside of your house, because this simple act of creating a distance makes you “free” from it.

What if we have the same freedom when it comes to our thinking? We don’t always have to get involved with it by putting our attention on it. Oftentimes it is enough to know that we can create a gap between our thinking and our awareness.

This is not to compare our mind with a piece of garbage. Our mind is a powerful tool. But often we limit its power by getting entangled in our thinking. And by stepping back we can not only experience inner peace, but also more clarity, inspiration and impact in our life.

Wishing you all of that :)

07/01/2024

Who would you be without your story? I used to think that it’s crucial to maintain/build my identities. But what if there is something much more powerful than any kind of identity we could ever have?

Imagine the following scenario. You just retired from your job and you win in a lottery a "journey around the world". This includes that you can buy an unlimited amount of stuff before the trip that you can then take with you onto your journey (including a vehicle of your choice) and it is all paid for.

Anything that you buy on the trip you will need to pay for yourself. And because you have low savings you decide you want to buy and pack as much as you can before. So you might decide to get a big van and pack it full with all the clothes and food that you can so that you can maximise the distance of your trip.

Like this you travel with your van and your luggage. You learned to be very frugal with your provisions and hence you are able to stretch your trip up to one year until you finally run out of food. You also don't have any energy left because the careful planning and frugal lifestyle took its toll on you.

One day you find an envelope in the van. You open it and you find a credit card inside with a note. You realise that part of your lottery win was actually that any expenses incurred during your trip are also covered (including flights, hotels, food, clothes, etc.). There is no limit on the credit card. And you can use it for 10 years.

How would you feel now? Most likely you will feel a new sense of ease and excitement realising all the options that suddenly opened up.

Knowing that any of your needs will be covered easily on the go, you can stop planning in advance all the daily details of your trip and worrying about your luggage. Maybe you even ditch your van in order to be more flexible.

On the remaining part of your journey, you can travel very light weight. You can spontaneously decide to explore new places, try out new activities, restaurants, etc. Your options are pretty limitless in most regards. As a result you will have more ease, joy and excitement.

I feel that in many ways, holding on to our stories and identities in life is a bit like this. We think we need them, because who would we be without them? If we are not aware that we have an unlimited credit card with us, we want to hold on to our luggage carefully.

Similarly when we are not aware of our capacity for accessing deep inner intelligence, clarity, and confidence in real time, we might want to hold on to the scripts of our stories and identities from the past.

But the moment we realise we have access to this inner intelligence, we don't have to worry about any script of the past. In fact it will be not only not needed, but it is unnecessary excess luggage that holds us back and blocks us from experiencing the full potential of life inside and outside.

I wish you a fun, exciting and fulfilling journey in the year ahead!

04/01/2024

I used to think that action is the most important thing when facing a challenge and that non-doing is procrastination. I now realise that this assumption can lead to a lot of missed opportunities..

Sometimes when we get triggered, it seems hard not to (re)act. It almost feels weak. But the truth is that oftentimes, simply creating a gap/space between stimulus and response is the most powerful and impactful thing we can do.

Sometimes this can mean rescheduling a business meeting to a week later, sometimes it can simply mean to take a deep breath and briefly feel into your body for a moment before responding to what was said by your client / team member / business partner.

We can almost never lose by creating a gap and oftentimes we can win. Why?

If we believe that our natural state is one of balance, clarity and wisdom, then a little space will always make us gravitate back to that centre of balance and wisdom. The question then becomes: How do we know in which situation a gap can be helpful?

In my experience a very reliable indicator is the strength of the pull that we feel to react. The stronger the pull, the more sense it makes to step back.

Because that pull that we feel mostly is a triggered compulsive/unconscious pattern in us that will rarely let us respond in the most conscious and intelligent way.

So the stronger the pull, the more sense it makes to add the space. I think that understanding this simple ‘rule’ can avoid a lot of damage and bring us a lot of new opportunities!

15/05/2021