Ok, I'm Back (Or Hope to Be) - Revisiting Santosha

Ok, I know. I have not written a blog post in forever - seriously, forever. For some time I have been kicking myself for not writing. The longer I put it off, the harder it became to start again.

• My new mission - trying to write every day. 
• What will likely happen - trying to write once a week

I am just coming off of the most amazing weekend. This past weekend was my last 500 hour advanced teacher training weekend. I feel so blessed to have worked, studied, shared, and created with a small group of profoundly wonderful people. This inspiration has pushed me to bring a new fervor to my practice, including working more deeply with my blog. For those of you reading this from Facebook - I swear, I will not post every post, just the ones I REALLY like. :)

I shared with the group on Saturday that I have been struggling with a severely negative attitude lately. I may not have been showing it (I try to keep it to myself), but it has been influencing me very deeply. I feel that it has influenced both my work and home life and it is about time I do something about it. 

So here is my remedy - Santosha (Contentment). Santosha is one of yoga's Niyamas (rules, observances, restrictions). For the next month I will try my best to live the Niyama of Contentment. So here we go. 

I am arming myself with a few tools. My main tool is a book that I have fallen in love with recently - The Yamas& Niyamas by Deborah Adele. If you have not picked this one up - do it! she says that Contentment is falling in love with your life - exactly what I need. 

In her book, Adele gives a month's plan for developing Santosha:

• Week 1: Journal when you find yourself getting ready for the next thing or look for contentment outside of yourself.
  
• Week 2: Notice how much energy you expend moving towards what you enjoy and avoiding what you dislike.
  
• Week 3: Take responsibility for emotional disturbances. Trace every annoyance back to yourself.
  
• Week 4: Practice gratitude and non seeking. Be content with each moment as it is.

This will be a challenge. I know that it takes 30 days of consistent work to create new habits/break old habits, so I am glad that she has created these tools the way she did. I will let you know how it goes.

Namaste!