Suacha

Niyamas: 2nd limb of Yoga

Niyamas are the self-restraint practices recommended by yogis (and yoginis) that enable you to fully embrace each moment of your life. It is really a wonderful opportunity to see how these practices may influence your pain and physical body!

It is very possible, maybe even likely, that you think of yoga as an opportunity to get more flexible. Or maybe you think, you’ll never do yoga, BECAUSE, you don’t identify as a flexible person.

Either way, there is way more to yoga than how far you can twist or bend. And I can’t wait to share with you some of these magical concepts!

We will be dropping down into the specifics of the 5 different niyamas. Starting with…..Suacha!

Saucha is sanskrit, and generally translated as purity and cleanliness.

The yoga world focuses on practicing saucha in body, mind, and speech. It is encouraged to take responsibility for the cleanliness of your body, but also the space in which you inhabit (such as your “body” of residence, work, neighborhood, planet!). What about your thoughts? Can you clean out the thoughts in your head that are keeping you stuck in pain or dis-ease? Have you taken the time to sit with your thoughts and begin to recognize patterns that are affecting you in negative ways? With speech, purity and cleanliness means being intentional about the words you choose to speak. This can be how you speak about your body or your situation with others…are you being honest, sincere, kind? The words we speak, the thoughts we think, the space we inhabit, and how we care for our bodies and spaces can have an immediate and long term ripple effect on our experiences.

How can you use saucha to have the ripple effect you’d actually welcome in your life?

Leave a comment below and let us know!