The Gift of Santosha

“How are you doing?” I asked my friend as we sipped tea and nibbled almonds.

“Umm,” she paused. “I’m not exactly happy like I was the months I was manic, but I’m not lonely and depressed like I was before I met Sam.”

“So, you’re okay?” I enquired.

“Well, I want to be really happy again, you know, really happy.”

“Like when you’re in love and ecstatic about things?” I asked.

“That’s it,” she said. “I don’t know how to get back there.”

Our conversation thrust me back three decades. “Judith, you’re addicted to being high and happy,” my yoga teacher told me. “Sugar,caffeine, excitemment, all the stimulants. You live on adrenaline. No wonder you’re  hyper and uptight.”

I was new to yoga and hadn’t made the body-mind-emotional-energy connection, but I knew she was right.

After a year or so of yoga classes I was much more relaxed and calm. My bitten fingernails grew. I could sit and meditate more easily. My husband said I was easier to live with.

But whenever I ate and drank all my favourites, (cookies, ice cream, chocolate, hot, sweet tea, coffee, and milkshakes) I noticed my yoga-peace got lost. I couldn’t maintain connection with the  calm, serene place I’d found through my yoga. I was very frustrated.

With the support and encouragement of my teacher, I let go of sugar, caffeine, and junk food. It was easier to stay centered and grounded longer without the stimulation of these substances. I practiced my yoga and meditation more, and my sugar outbursts less. The results were profound:

***Instead of swearing at the intense Mississippi heat when I stepped out of my air-conditioned home, “How DARE it still be so bloody hot!” (growl, grumble) I was somehow able to just accept it that summer.

***Instead of picking up my husband’s socks and shirts feeling  resentment, I pushed them over to his side of the bedroom with my toe and a shrug.

*** Instead of fretting over the arrival of my monthly period when I was trying to get pregnant, the thought came during  yoga, “the longer it takes to conceive, the longer I don’t need to worry about birth control.”

The combination of almost daily yoga and meditation, without the interference of large amounts of sugar and caffeine undoing the relaxation response ,gave me a strong sense of equanimity I had not experienced before. “You are getting a taste of Santosha,” my teacher said.

“What’s that?” I asked. She gave me a book about yoga philosophy. I read the Niyamas: thoughtful, yoga practices or observances which helped lead us to the  goal of yoga: connection with Unity, Oneness, Wholeness, and a Higher, Deeper Truth many call God.

Of course, being a lowly mortal I’ve been on and off caffeine and sugar during different periods of my life. (I always feel better when I’m off!)

When I moved to Raleigh 20 years ago, I took on Santosha  as a daily, active practice. My partner and I shared 3 things we were each grateful for at bedtime. When we split up I said them out loud at night-time. Nowadays, I write or mentally bring to mind 7 or 8 appreciations. 

It was a difficult practice to continue during my post divorce depression, a couple of years ago, yet mighty powerful. Every-time I turn my focus towards what is going well, no matter how small or seemingly petty, something in my consciousness shifts slightly. I am invited back into a more positive way of witnessing my life, my relationships, and all the complexities happening in the world beyond my control.

Santosha isn’t the happy high of new love or the excitement of adventure. This delicious mind-state comes and goes. Santosha is “the ability to be comfortable with what we have and what we have not. Contentment, simply put , is the key to total happiness,” says yoga master TKV Desikacha. “Santosha renders the mind steady and is a source of true happiness,” states Swami Kripalu, and ” Content-ment is the ability to feel satisfied within the container of one’s mind,” writes Donna Fahri. “When at peace and content with oneself and others, Santosha, supreme joy, is celebrated.”

One foot-note: Santosha is a dynamic practice of learning to accept things as they are, but it doesn’t mean putting up with unhealthy relationships, abuse, oppression, or values we do not subscribe to. It does allows us to become more centered and calm while we develop the clarity or resources to improve or solve things in effective, wise , non-violent ways.

It is said, when we become adept at Santosha it is easier to shift into the powerful, graceful states of serenity and contentment. Whenever this has happened to me I experienced Santosha not as a fruit of my labour or as something I could have manipulated, but as a wonder-filled gift from my Creator.

For Valentine’s I wish you the gift of Santosha.