Sangha YogAyurveda

11/03/2025

09/24/2025

A Question:
Why is shadow work making me feel more heavy and sad?

AI response:
You may be confusing the purpose of shadow work or engaging in it in a way that is causing you to avoid happiness. The goal of shadow work is not to resist happiness but to help you become a more whole and authentic person, which can ultimately lead to greater fulfillment and peace.

Using shadow work to actively avoid happiness is a sign that you are likely struggling with a deeper issue, such as a fear of happiness, known as cherophobia.

Why shadow work might lead you to resist happiness?

Shadow work is a psychological practice, based on the theories of Carl Jung, that involves exploring and integrating the hidden, repressed, and denied parts of yourself. If you are using this process to avoid positive feelings, it may be due to:

A misunderstanding of the process: You might mistakenly believe that confronting negative parts of yourself means you must dwell in that darkness. But the purpose is to accept those parts so they lose their power over you, not to avoid joy.

An unhealed root cause: A fear of happiness, or cherophobia, can stem from past trauma or experiences where happiness was followed by pain or disappointment. This creates a mental habit of distrusting positive feelings. In this case, doing shadow work may simply be reinforcing your protective avoidance pattern rather than helping you heal it.

Self-sabotage: When your shadow remains unintegrated, it can affect your life in unconscious ways, including self-sabotage. Resisting happiness is a form of self-sabotage, often driven by a deeply held, unconscious belief that you don't deserve good things.

The feeling of being undeserving: You may have a buried belief that you don't deserve to be happy, which the shadow work process can bring to the surface. If you don't integrate this revelation in a healthy way, you might push happiness away to align with that false belief.

A healthier approach to integrating your shadow
If you find yourself resisting happiness, it is crucial to adjust your approach to shadow work. The correct practice is meant to help you move toward wholeness, not away from it.

Reframe your goal: Understand that shadow work is not about banishing your "dark" side. Instead, it's about acknowledging and accepting it to reduce the internal conflict that holds you back. The energy you spend repressing your shadow is energy you could be using to live a more fulfilling life.

Practice self-compassion: Embrace the parts of yourself you have rejected without judgment. Your shadow self is not inherently evil; it's just a part of you that has been suppressed. The more you accept it, the less power it has over you.
Explore the "golden shadow": Your shadow doesn't just contain negative traits; it also holds positive ones, like creativity or ambition, that you were taught to suppress. By exploring this "golden shadow," you can reclaim valuable talents that you may have rejected out of fear.

Connect with your emotions mindfully:

When you feel a trigger or an impulse to avoid happiness, observe it without judgment. Ask yourself where this feeling comes from. By understanding its origin, you can choose a different response.

Identify the underlying fear:

Acknowledge your fear of happiness. Consider the belief systems or past experiences that taught you that happiness is unsafe or will inevitably lead to disappointment. Facing this fear is a core part of the healing process.
When to seek professional help
Shadow work can be an intense and challenging process, especially if it brings up unresolved trauma.

If your fear of happiness or tendency to self-sabotage is significantly affecting your life, consider working with a licensed mental health professional.

Therapies such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) are particularly effective in helping people identify and reframe the unhelpful thought patterns and beliefs that drive fears of happiness.
Yoga, meditation and pranayama are clearing and healing Practices as daily holistic health maintainence.

09/14/2025

“Give up the guilt.
Give up the unworthiness.
Give up the self-pity.
Give up the anger.
Give up the greed.
Give up the lust.

And every time you meet it again, give it up again!

“Here Christ, you take it.” That’s what he went on the cross for: to take that stuff from you.

That’s what Kali is there for in the Hindu tradition: to take that stuff from you.

That’s what the Guru is there for: to take it from you.

But you’ve got to want to give it up.

You get to the point in this game where everything in you that is keeping you from getting Home, you say, “Forget it.”

You are looking at a map and every side road, no matter how pretty the mountains, if it’s not getting you home, it doesn’t interest you anymore.”—Ram Dass

09/11/2025

The Animal Husbandry Department have set up relief camps for veterinary care and support for cattle in the wake of the Punjab floods.

07/24/2025

🌿 Food Is More Than Fuel 🌿
What we eat is just the beginning. We digest life through all our senses; sight, sound, smell, touch, and emotion.

🍲 Eating is a Full-Body, Full-Spirit Experience
Food is energy, memory, mood, rhythm. It’s how the outer world enters our inner world.

🔥 In Ayurveda, digestion is sacred.
The gut is more than a stomach; it’s Agni, the fire that transforms food and experience into who we are.

🧠 The Gut is Where the Inner Meets the Outer
Science calls it the “second brain.” Ayurveda always knew: our gut processes more than food; it processes thoughts, feelings, and energy.

💫 We don’t just eat with our mouths.
We consume with our minds. We feed on sound, light, emotion, and intention.

🧘🏽‍♀️ True nourishment is holistic.
Ayurveda teaches: what we eat, how we eat, and why we eat; all shape our health.

Ask yourself:
What am I feeding my body?
What am I feeding my mind?
What am I feeding my spirit?

✨ Feed yourself with beauty. With presence. With love.
Because food isn’t just what’s on the plate;
It’s also how you live.

07/24/2025

Food: A Holistic Experience of the Senses, Soul, and Self

Food is never just food. It is the convergence of the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. It is how we engage with the outer world through taste, smell, texture, color, memory, and meaning. It is how the world enters us through the gate of the senses and the vessel of the gut.

We often think of eating as a simple act of sustenance, but in truth, it is a rich, multilayered experience. From the sizzle of spices in a hot pan to the earthy scent of fresh herbs, eating begins long before food touches the tongue. It begins with sight, sound, smell. The anticipation of a meal can awaken memories, trigger emotions, even shift our state of mind.

In Ayurveda, this idea is ancient and central. The body is seen not as separate from the mind or the soul, but as an integrated whole. Food is the first form of nourishment, it enters the body, but it also enters the mind and the subtle body. What we digest is not just protein or fiber, but emotion, intention, energy. We feed on atmosphere, on mood, on the quiet gratitude or unconscious stress with which we prepare and consume each bite.

Ayurveda teaches us that digestion is a sacred fire: Agni….. that lives in the gut and governs how we transform not only food but all experience. A calm, steady mind supports strong digestion. Likewise, a weakened digestive fire can dull the senses, cloud the mind, and disturb the spirit. This is why gut health is not merely a matter of fiber or probiotics: it is a reflection of how we live, what we believe, what we carry emotionally, and how we relate to the world.

The gut is where the outer world: plants, animals, minerals, becomes our inner world: our blood, tissues, thoughts, hormones, and energy. It is where the separation between "self" and "not-self" becomes blurred. The gut doesn’t just process food, it processes reality.

Modern science is now beginning to echo what Ayurveda has always known: that the gut is a second brain, a center of intuition, emotion, and immune wisdom. But Ayurveda goes one step further,
it recognizes that we must feed all layers of our being. To truly nourish ourselves, we must eat with awareness. With beauty. With love. With rhythm. We must eat what is aligned with our body type, our climate, our season, and our emotional needs.

So we ask: What are we consuming….. not just through our mouths, but through our eyes, ears, minds, and hearts? What do we feed ourselves in the form of media, conversation, belief, silence, and self-talk? What kind of energy do we "digest" every day?

To eat well is to live well. It is to align body, mind, and spirit. Food is where that alignment begins, a sacred act that grounds us in the present, nourishes our tissues, steadies our emotions, and connects us back to the web of life.

In the end, eating is not just about what is on the plate. It is about how we meet life and how life meets us, in the sacred space of the gut.