Let go of the old, to let in the .. the old? • 05.31.10
Aparigraha – non-covetousness, letting go of our worldly possessions and learning to live on what we need rather than what we want. No other yama (or niyama) has resonated so deeply with me. It seems appropriate for the season spring cleaning, or if you’re like me “early summer cleaning”. For many years of my life I learned the ways of the pack rat. How to pack everything so optimally you can stuff in 2x as much cruft as the container was designed for. My whole family did it, it fell on me like human nature. Until that is, the stuff became overwhelming. But instead of getting rid of stuff I made BFFs with the container store, organize it, and the mecca of my cheap OCD soul, Ikea. But it was work, it was so much work it may as well have been a second career, and one that I daresay I’d be darn good at.
But my stuff was over taking my life. I looked at apartments and wondered about the closet space — rather than the light, air,fixtures and how the place made me FEEL. Instead I wondered if it had enough space for all my stuff. Then about 7 years ago for the first time I got rid of all the stuff I hadn’t worn in a year. And it was liberating. It was propelled by my incoming move, but nonetheless it was liberating. Since then, I’ve tried to maintain a yearly ritual of getting rid of stuff I hadn’t used in a year . OK a year and a half maybe. I’ve also been discovering that as I practice aparigraha more, the other yamas and niyamas fall into place. Santosha follows my sense of liberation, and saucha in my mentality (and rooms) by having less “stuff” to attract clutter and dust.
So after all the effort to free myself from my possession the irony is not lost on me — that I loved shopping at the Brooklyn Flea to buy other people’s old stuff. I tried to limit it to stuff I’d be giving away (aka “gifts”) but I saw a couple inspirational items that no doubt I’ll have to come up with ways to replicate, or .. buy it and bring their old stuff to my new stuff. But that’s OK — none of it is wasted, and perhaps I can breathe new life to their possessions just as someone perhaps is breathing new life to mine.
After an extended hiatus from yoga, I went back. Dealing with stress at work, and other sources of drama, I had lost sight of my practice, for what seemed like months. It’s easy to put off going to the mat, after a long day at work, sometimes a bubble bath was more appealing than sun salutations. I got tired of coming home at 9:30 – 10pm — too late to put anything together besides Lean Cuisine, and barely enough time spend with my better half. I was a certified teacher, I figured it was time to put some of my training to use and develop a home practice.
