Mariela’s Sunday Thoughts: Nourishment
These past few months have been a bit out of the ordinary for me: I’ve been working extra hard (a good 20 hours a day), I’ve been sleeping significantly less than ideal, and my nutrition consisted mainly of taco shells and cheese (the only things we had in our fridge, since we had no time to go shopping). On top of it all, in March I experienced one of the most stressful situations I’ve ever dealt with: I was the subject of racism and discrimination, leading to a tremendous feeling of disappointment, unsafety, danger, and fear. It comes to no surprise that last week, at my doctor’s appointment, I was informed that I needed several rounds of IV treatments because I was effectively malnourished.
It is no coincidence that, during the past few months, I stopped practicing yoga - my attention was somewhere else, rooted in the material world as I focused on creating Grounded. So, naturally, ahimsa took the back seat, and I forgot about one of the yoga yamas.
Ahimsa is usually defined as non-violence. Rarely we look deeper into it, missing out on ways to embody it. And that is exactly what I did: I was focussing on not engaging in a fight (prioritizing the basic interpretation of non-violence), yet I was neglecting self-care, self-compassion, rest, and nourishment.
Ironically, I only became aware of it once my doctor showed me scientific proof that I was not practicing ahimsa the way I ask my students to do. That’s the beauty of yoga: once attention is brought into self, we are faced with the opportunity of understanding, learning, and growing.
For the last few months I’ve been riding the adrenaline wave that comes with the excitement of creating something new, yet completely distracted from the one thing that allows us to be available to others: self-care.
So, as of last week, I’ve been focusing on playing with ahimsa. I’ve been watching my sleep, diet, and free time; but I’ve been also focusing on being present, safe, connected, nourished.
Yoga is a noble practice - it is always there for us, even when we temporarily step away from it. Yoga is patient, forgiving, understanding, curious, magical. No matter where we are at, yoga is waiting for us, with open arms, ready to offer some good ol’ nourishment.
A simple journaling (or thought/meditation) prompt to bring attention to ahimsa:
Morning: choose one quality that you love about yourself and write about (or visualize) it.
Evening: write (or think) about one thing you did that day to care for another being.