Becoming Bendy
Get flexible in mind and attitude to effect real change:how simply moving your mat can start to shift the samskara.
By Andrea Marcum
The seasons of spring and summer bring with them opportunity…a chance to clean out some of the cobwebs from the winter and replace them with vibrant possibility (even if you happen to live in LA like I do where the change of season is barelydetectable). Longer days shine new light on the places we’ve been feeling a bit stuck in our routine or uninspired during our hibernation.
In yoga philosophy, samskara are the impressions left on the subconscious mind by experience. You might think of them as habits, or learned behaviour. My favourite visual description is that samskara are like the grooves that form in a sandy riverbed from the water flowing in the same pattern year after year. And, though some samskara can be positive, a lot of it is negative programming that looks like this: I’m not good enough at that, strong enough to do that, thin enough to wear that, patient enough to learn that…I can’t!