Relationships Are Primary, Everything Else is Derivative

MY AHA MOMENT COULD BE YOURS TOO

The first time I realized how yoga was actually working in my life – off the mat, beyond the body – was noticing how I felt in my relationships. It was about a month into my training as a yoga therapist and my teacher shared – “you’ll know the yoga is working when your relationships change”.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the reflex of practicing perspective was naturally emerging within my thoughts and communication strategies of my relationships. Sibling relationships, my boyfriend, my boss, my colleagues, that angry woman at the park one day, the curt customer service rep on the phone – and most importantly, the way I was treating myself.

THE RELATIONSHIP SUTRA

One of the more directly applied sutras for enriching our relationships comes from the Eight Limbs of yoga – a starter kit, of sorts, within the greater path laid out by the Yoga Sutras. The first limb teaches us about the Yamas, or relationship principles. “Yama” is Sanskrit for: control or restraint. 

It’s easy to get caught up in words in translations – the word ‘control’ might have a negative or triggered feel. When we practice perspective and reflect on what we are doing in that perception, we can see clearly that holding on to one interpretation of a word is, in essence, ‘control’… is it not?

Once we loosen our grip and open our mind to an alternate understanding of ‘control or restraint’, we see that Yamas, in the context of principles (a word also related to control or restraint) are simply guardrails keeping you on the path away from suffering. The intended result of the Yamas is to cultivate peace, harmony, and self-awareness.

We start with awareness of how we ‘relate’ to ourself, others and behaviors.

The Yamas are most effective as a blueprint of self-love first. It creates a whole new lens in which we can now choose to view others. It’s magnificently liberating.

Can we accept and love ourself as we practice the Yamas – quieting the narrative of alleged physical flaws, career failures, parenting mishaps and all? Can we see everyone around us on the same playing field as equally human, with stressful jobs or stressful days, with relationship conflicts, disappointment and their own practice of self-judgment?

It doesn’t stop us from striving for goals or accountability; it just provides us with the understanding that everyone’s behavior comes from some form of suffering. Once we see the causes of suffering within ourself, we find greater compassion and spiritual logic in others’ behaviors too; it begins to explain the many possibilities of why people do what they do.

This enables is to relate differently, to choose an alternate communication style, to rethink a situation or not doing anything at all – refraining from the assumption that we hold a responsibility to fix something. And sometimes the clarity we find is to limit engagement in a relationship or not engage at all.

My fire-breathing boss was a man going through a divorce; my close-minded colleague had a different flair for risk in his job as he had to support four kids at home; that curt customer service rep had poor training; who knows what that angry stranger in the park was suffering from; my client was a man experiencing the cultural pressure of fitting into the exact image of his corporate peers, and so on.

Here are examples how these might be applied in day to day life:

1. Ahimsa: Practice being more kind, accepting, and forgiving of yourself and others…

2. Satya: To uphold truthfulness, authenticity; “sit with your truth” – be mindful/aware of emotional reactions that don’t serve you and seek to understand the root of your suffering, it could be a truth within yourself or a truth you now see in others…

3. Asteya: The urge to steal arises from a sense of unhappiness, incompleteness, and envy; are you hijacking someone else’s energy for your own sole benefit, and likewise, are you enabling others to take your energy by saying “yes” when it might be wiser to say “no” at times…

4. Brahmacharya: Moderation and discipline; notice the extreme behaviors that are destructive of your mind, body and spirit — excess consumption of the news, binge watching TV, overeating, stubbornness in relationships; translation of brahmacharya is “walking in God-consciousness”…

5. Aparigraha: In what ways do you share abundance with others in need by trusting – believing – you will experience it yourself; “all the things of the world are yours to use, but not to own”…

TAKE 5

We can draw wisdom from many other yoga sutras to help heal and enrich our relationships, so just consider this short list of 5 relationship principles (Yamas) as a start or source of information to guide you within. The subsequent sister limb to the Yamas is the Niyamas, which are lifestyle principles, and may be helpful to review in my other post, here.

And remember, it’s a practice. We don’t walk into a gym, finish one workout and walk out with a body that has been physically transformed into our goal. Yoga is about moving from suffering to contentment, and it happens as you build the reflex in your mind, over the course of many little situations. 

Credit props to one of my early teachers who displayed the title of this post in her email signature line for many years. Thanks for the inspiration G!