Samskara, Dammit

I often draft my blogs as they come to me, but sometimes (as is this case with this post) it takes a while for a draft to make it to this site... 

I've heard our 3 year old son say to a couple people recently "my new favorite word is dammit".

It's funny, because he has started saying dammit - he's picked it up from the grown-ups in our house.  And it's hard not to laugh when he says it.

What's funnier, is his saying it's his new favorite word.  This is something that I have said a few times to my friends when I thought he couldn't hear me.

Samskara is a Sanskrit word that loosely translates to mean the generalized patterns, impressions, ideas, or actions that make up our conditioning.  Samskaras can be positive nor negative, but it's the negative ones that often hold is back in our personal growth.

My son repeating the "me new favorite word..." just reminds me that he, and all children, don't miss a thing.  They're sponges.  They hear & absorb what we want & don't want them to hear.

And we were all kids once.

All things that were said to us - good & not so good, true & not so true - we heard them.  And we absorbed what was said - good & not so good, true & not so true.

As we grow, we may forget what was said, the actual words.  But we still hold it, in our bodies, somewhere in our minds, in our spirits.  And often, it holds us back.  Especially, when we don't remember it.

For me, I'm not good at math.  I don't ever remember being good at math.  And I often wonder if it's just not my thing, or if somewhere, way back when I was young, someone told me I wasn't good at it.

That's a pretty harmless example - fortunate my phone has a calculator:). But a lot of what we carry is much more hurtful & harmful...I'm not pretty, I'm not smart, I'm not good enough, I'm not worth anything.

The practice of yoga often brings you face to face with these constructs.  In a challenging pose, in a challenging moment, what you've absorbed suddenly comes up.  And you may back away from that challenge & from what comes up for a long time.  But then comes the point that you recognize that it isn't you.  That in that challenging moment you can breathe & you can feel that you are everything you want to be - strong, worthy, beautiful, smart.  And as you breathe in & absorb that - you can breathe out all the rest.

You release the power of the past.  You come present & embrace the power of the moment - your power. 

That's why we call it power yoga. (http://www.sanctuarypoweryoga.com/)