Contentment With Our Practice On and Off the Mat

As I introduced last week, this month’s theme is the Niyama of Santosha, or Contentment. Today, I want to write about contentment with our practice on and off the mat. As I mentioned last week, I think the idea of contentment often gets misconstrued. People tend to think that if you’re content, you won’t move forward. But I’m working on looking at it a different way - not fighting with where we are right now, but still allowing ourselves to keep goals and dreams for the future. The way I look at it, contentment can be as “simple” (in quotes because it’s easier said than done) as not fighting against ourselves. It doesn’t have to mean that everything is perfect where it is - it simply means we meet ourselves where we are, which is something we talk about often in yoga. 

Shoulder stand, a pose where I’m working to be content at my current ability.

On the mat, contentment could extend to several areas. It could mean contentment in the physical practice that you’re doing in the moment - being able to settle into the class, onto the mat, focusing on your breath, feeling the physical movements in your body, moving away from outside stresses for that 60 or 75 minutes. It could mean being content in the place that your practice is for now - the variations of poses you feel comfortable in, the way your body feels in each pose, how the practice makes you feel mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. It could mean contentment with the place or frequency or mode that you practice. Maybe you can’t make it to the studio often, but you’re able to get on your mat at home in the morning before everyone’s up at home or after your kids have gone to bed. 

As an instructor, it might be contentment with where your teaching practice is at the moment - the type of classes you teach, the places you teach, the way you feel when teaching, and even the space you create for your own practice. It doesn’t mean not having goals to grow or expand your teaching, it simply means meeting yourself where you are now, instead of “shoulding” yourself and fighting against what you’ve accomplished so far, where you are right now. 

Off the mat, contentment with your practice could extend to areas such as the yamas and the niyamas as I’ve been discussing in this blog, or the other steps of the eight-fold path. I’ve discussed the ways in which I focus on yoga in daily life when I wrote about topics such as non-harming, letting go, truthfulness (the yamas of ahimsa, aparigraha, and satya). I’ve also talked about the idea of connection in daily life - connecting with others, connecting with ourselves, connecting with something greater than ourselves. This idea of connection is also central to yoga, and building this connection is a way that we can practice off the mat. And so perhaps, it’s an area where we can also practice santosha or contentment. Being content with where our connections are, while not eliminating our goals and efforts for growth and development. 

If you know me, you probably know that, in full disclosure, Santosha, or Contentment is not my strongest suit. And sometimes, it seems  like the more content we try to be, the more restless we feel. I want to be clear here too, that this idea of practicing contentment does not mean allowing this to be a source for self-shame or blame. Feeling bad about yourself because you think you “should” be more content actually moves you away from contentment, not towards it. Contentment, to me at least, means instead that you’re ok with where you are in the process, wherever that is. That you accept yourself as you are at this moment. And I think that it’s actually at this point of contentment that, far from hindering our pursuit of  goals and dreams, that we’re able to take a step forward and move toward them, if we choose to do so. And if you are content with exactly where you are and make the conscious choice to stay there, then that, too, is perfectly OK too.