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Focus Topics – Click title to read the Article
October Focus — Habit Patterns –Sanskara
By Mary Honchock
In our busy, hectic lives we can get “stuck” in routines, not realizing what those routines do to us over the long term. What we eat, how we behave, what we choose to do or don’t leave patterns and traces in our mind and body. In Indian philosophy Sanskara or habit patterns are the imprints left on the subconscious mind by experience in this or previous lives. So some of the things we do we may not fully know why we do them, so good or bad we just do!
Usually it takes something out of the ordinary to draw our attention to our habit patterns. Maybe a doctor’s visit, even if it was just stepping on the scales, can draw our mind to what we have been doing. Recently in my case it was starting a business. I looked at my life to decide if the things I was doing daily were giving me energy or taking it away. My intention was to make a few adjustments to increase my energy and focus it towards growing the business. So how do you go about this monumental task of changing your habit patterns towards productive and positive ones? This question has fueled a huge self-help industry in our country; the path to bettering oneself.
Beryl Bender Birch says, first you have to figure out where your prana is leaking. Prana means “life force” or “energy”. It is the energy that flows through the channels, or nadis, of our body. If we are disturbed our prana is scattered and unproductive. If we are centered we can focus our prana and direct it toward a certain objective. So how do you figure out where your energy is being drained? Do you have habit patterns or people in your life that pull energy from you? One example from my life has been reducing caffeine consumption. We stopped drinking coffee, mainly because my husband has difficulty sleeping. He would drink a whole pot of coffee then switch to diet cokes and wonder why he couldn’t fall asleep. I laughed saying that if I had as much caffeine as he consumed daily I’d never sleep. (Why is it so easy to recognize the bad habits of others?) So we went off coffee and switched to green tea. I didn’t think it would be a problem for me. I only drank maybe a cup or 2 a day no biggie right. Wrong, I couldn’t enter a Starbucks for the first couple of weeks without my mouth beginning to water. But within weeks both of our sleep patterns began to change. Both of us were sleeping better. A small (albeit hard) change in our habit patterns has helped us increase our prana and has allowed us better sleep. It’s been a few months now and I can bravely go into Starbucks and order tea without even the desire for a Vente Latte, because sleep is ever so much sweeter!
Practicing yoga can also be a great way increase your prana, and help you find the draining things you do as well. Each time you step on your mat you are invigorating your body with the physical nature of the practice and training your mind away from being distracted and disturbed. You learn to pay attention when you practice focusing your mind on the small details. Yoga can help transform you into a greater state of calmness. Your life may not get any easier but the way you view issues can help you remain more focused and less disturbed.
By Mary Honchock
In our busy, hectic lives we can get “stuck” in routines, not realizing what those routines do to us over the long term. What we eat, how we behave, what we choose to do or don’t leave patterns and traces in our mind and body. In Indian philosophy Sanskara or habit patterns are the imprints left on the subconscious mind by experience in this or previous lives. So some of the things we do we may not fully know why we do them, so good or bad we just do!
Usually it takes something out of the ordinary to draw our attention to our habit patterns. Maybe a doctor’s visit, even if it was just stepping on the scales, can draw our mind to what we have been doing. Recently in my case it was starting a business. I looked at my life to decide if the things I was doing daily were giving me energy or taking it away. My intention was to make a few adjustments to increase my energy and focus it towards growing the business. So how do you go about this monumental task of changing your habit patterns towards productive and positive ones? This question has fueled a huge self-
Beryl Bender Birch says, first you have to figure out where your prana is leaking. Prana means “life force” or “energy”. It is the energy that flows through the channels, or nadis, of our body. If we are disturbed our prana is scattered and unproductive. If we are centered we can focus our prana and direct it toward a certain objective. So how do you figure out where your energy is being drained? Do you have habit patterns or people in your life that pull energy from you? One example from my life has been reducing caffeine consumption. We stopped drinking coffee, mainly because my husband has difficulty sleeping. He would drink a whole pot of coffee then switch to diet cokes and wonder why he couldn’t fall asleep. I laughed saying that if I had as much caffeine as he consumed daily I’d never sleep. (Why is it so easy to recognize the bad habits of others?) So we went off coffee and switched to green tea. I didn’t think it would be a problem for me. I only drank maybe a cup or 2 a day no biggie right. Wrong, I couldn’t enter a Starbucks for the first couple of weeks without my mouth beginning to water. But within weeks both of our sleep patterns began to change. Both of us were sleeping better. A small (albeit hard) change in our habit patterns has helped us increase our prana and has allowed us better sleep. It’s been a few months now and I can bravely go into Starbucks and order tea without even the desire for a Vente Latte, because sleep is ever so much sweeter!
Practicing yoga can also be a great way increase your prana, and help you find the draining things you do as well. Each time you step on your mat you are invigorating your body with the physical nature of the practice and training your mind away from being distracted and disturbed. You learn to pay attention when you practice focusing your mind on the small details. Yoga can help transform you into a greater state of calmness. Your life may not get any easier but the way you view issues can help you remain more focused and less disturbed.
Good things only seem to happen in small measure, and transformation does not often happen in the blink of an eye (at least not the positive kind). So take it slowly one baby positive step at a time. Maybe decide to commit to one more yoga practice a week or trying to mediate for 5 minutes a couple of times a week. Small positive changes in our habits take some work, but what you reap in the long term is more energy or “prana”. So if you are wondering has my commitment to small changes in my life helped me direct my prana – so far yes, but ask me again come January. One baby step at a time!