Aparigraha cont’d

I have found that the more self-work I do, the more deeply I have come to understand my own body, heart, and mind. This work helps me get a clearer sense of what I need to live in a way that is healthy for me. The challenge remains to find the courage to communicate my clarity.

Despite the challenge of communicating my truth, I felt that I owed it to my self and to the people I love to share it.

I find courage to stand on my own two feet from the people in life who encourage me to be who I am, real and raw and unfettered.

So I wrote a letter on Sunday morning, within it my truth. It was a truth of who I am and what I feel and need in this moment of my life.

And I sent the letter, drove to yoga, and sat down on my mat.

The first thirty minutes of our practice was to sit in silence. In silence, there was nothing to hold me up but me. And I was not feeling brave. Where was my shell I had been carrying with me for the past several months? It was as though it dissolved when I began offering up to the universe the truest version of who I was becoming.

And without my shell, there was nothing to stop the pain from rising up from the roots through my heart and through the lump in my throat. Soon, one and then several tears were streaming down my face. My body began to shudder, from the vibrations of melancholia moving through me. My breath responded in kind. I could feel myself shaking and taking shallow breaths.

Surrounded by people I loved and trusted, I still felt alone. Empty. Unsettled.

And then I was no longer alone. There was an arm wrapping itself around me, holding me.

Comforting words enveloped me in a soft shell, softer than the one that had evaded me only moments earlier.

I liked this shell. It was comforting.

As soon as I left yoga, the discomfort and unease settled right back in.

It was then that I looked up the definition of the yama gifted to me by my teacher.

Aparigraha: holding on to things tightly, perhaps a little too tightly.

I began thinking about practicing Aparigraha as letting go of material attachments.

But as time passed on after sharing my truth, Aparigraha began to reveal itself to me in a more metaphysical sense of the word.

I feel it is my responsibility to discover my truth and then to share it with as gently and lovingly as I can.

Beyond this, I can be patient with how people respond, whether they respond in anger or support.