When I started this practice this year, I said there are 10 of these practices so we’ll have two months to review at the end of the year. HA! March got eaten up by the whole process of buying and then closing on and then moving into our new home in Columbus. If you wanna be nosey (and who doesn’t!?), it’s right here.
I cannot explain to you what a freaking miracle this purchase was. I never thought we’d find something in Victorian Village, mere blocks from the main arts district. But here we are. If you knew our home in Erie, this space is that square footage, BUT there’s an undeveloped attic space here that shows a ton of promise as an art and music space for Craig and general storage. We’re settled in and excited.
Now to begin again with our yoga inquiries…
Nonstealing seems pretty obvious, right? Don’t take what’s not yours. We tend to limit our thinking around this to the material world, to concrete objects that do not belong to us. So, most of us, can feel pretty good right away about ASTEYA… most of us can immediately say, I’m good here! I don’t steal.
But that is the most simplistic level of this yama (restraint).
Over the coming month, think about and observe yourself relative to the following questions. Try to observe and not also layer on shame. Guilt is okay; it can tell us something is off. But shame is not productive.
How often do you steal from YOURSELF? This one is freaking VAST, right? When we’re not true to who we are, we’re stealing. Every time we don’t honor our own needs, we’re stealing. When we give too much to others, we’re stealing from us. There is so much we steal from ourselves: energy, time, integrity, care, love, trust, faith, belief… the list could truly go on and on…
How often do you steal from others? Do you pop someone’s excitement balloon? Do you rain on friends’ parades? Do you not tell them something they need to know? Again… this list could take many pages.
How much do you steal from this earth? I can barely begin to start the list of questions here. Follow yourself through your day and just notice…. did you leave the water running? Did you drive when you could have walked? Did you waste food? Sigh…
Are you stealing from the future? We are someone’s ancestors. What are we leaving behind?
I would love to hear from you on this one. Even if we all just added more questions, that would be helpful to the community at large.