Ahimsa: The Yamas Series
This is the beginning of a series of blog posts exploring the Yamas, one of the eight limbs of yoga that details the restraints that aid the ethical practice of yoga. In today’s blog, we will explore the first Yama, Ahimsa (nonviolence), and learn practical ways to include this restraint in our everyday life.
What is Ahimsa?
Ahimsa is the conscious decision to refrain from producing any acts of violence towards oneself or others. While major violence is included, such as physical pain and death, the art of mastering this Yama is in noticing the subtleties of which violent acts or thoughts creep into our everyday lives.
Ahimsa for Oneself
Another translation of Ahimsa is non harming, rather than nonviolence, and sometimes that minor distinction in word choice can be very eye-opening. So let’s begin with a few questions that may enlighten you to the ways you could cause harm to yourself every single day without even noticing:
Do you ever criticize your appearance?
Have you ever insulted yourself when you felt you had done something badly or wrong either through self-deprecating humor or harsh words?
Do you ever punish yourself by having to earn meals or by forcing yourself to exercise when your body needs a break?
When was the last time you gave yourself a compliment?
What boundaries do you have in place to prevent putting others’ needs before your own?
Do you honor your time and spend it in ways that create joy?
What obligations do not serve you that you need to let go of?
When you mess up a practice, habit, or ritual, do you give yourself the grace to accept it and continue forward?
Now that is a lot of questions to throw at you at once, and this isn’t even close to all that could be listed. But let’s talk about ways you may not realize you’re harming yourself and how you can derail that bad habit to build one of Ahimsa.
Diet & Exercise
The hardest part about Ahimsa, is that many harmful things can easily disguise themselves as good. A healthy diet is absolutely great for your wellbeing, but you begin harming yourself the minute you deny yourself your cravings or beat yourself up over the smallest deviances from your healthy lifestyle. The same is true for physical exercise, moving your body is a gift that you should take full advantage of, but do not push yourself beyond what your body is asking for. It’s important to ask yourself if your actions will do more harm than good.
Rest
On the other hand, giving yourself rest and even a break from the world through mindless activities is a great way to recharge, but shouldn’t be all that you do. There comes a time when rest will cause you to harm yourself through loss of mobility, or even by making you fall into a constant state of lethargy. With everything else in life, you are meant to be in balance and to listen to your needs and accept them even if they don’t always align with your goal.
Social
Beyond health and fitness, socially you may be harming yourself by over committing to too many things, or by not setting enough time aside to spend with loved ones. In all that you do, continue to ask yourself if your current state is causing you harm and how you can take care of yourself.
Ahimsa for Others
This section is going to be noticeably shorter than the last. Do you want to know what the best way to prevent harming others is? By treating yourself in a way that is kind and respectful. The way we treat ourselves will always bleed into how we treat those we are in relationship with.
Have you ever noticed that you’re most critical of the things in others that you dislike about yourself? Maybe you judge someone’s actions because you haven’t practiced acceptance for your own issues.
For example, maybe your best friend in the entire world cusses like crazy when they’re passionate about something and you are always ready to call them out for it. What if you stopped to ask yourself why this bothered you to the point of hurting your friend by interrupting or judging? Do you restrict yourself when you feel impassioned and hold in your feelings when you should let them flow? Do you hold yourself to an impossible standard of how you should behave that therefore limits your own voice?
How you treat yourself will absolutely be how you treat others - even if you don’t notice it, even if you believe yourself to be nice. You cannot be kind to someone else if you, the source of that kindness, have never known that type of treatment from within.
We have only scratched the surface on Ahimsa today, so you’re invited to explore it and the other Yamas in this book and you’re encouraged to dig deeper by using the questions above as journal prompts to explore the nature of harmfulness and how to exclude it from the narrative of your story.
Intend To Shine,
The NuPower Tribe