Perhaps instead of a chocolate or champagne hangover, you are weighed down by your woes of what you didn’t get yesterday. I’m actually somewhat exhausted from how sad and bitter people seemed.
Valentine’s might be the BEST day to practice yoga, more than any other time of year.
In Yoga Sutra 1.2, Swami Satchindananda mentions a Sanskrit saying, “As the mind, so the man; bondage or liberation are in your own mind.”
Valentine’s is definitely a bondage holiday; a time when the generic, standardized ways of society massively materialize. It’s hard not to get caught up in such an over-powering force like that.
As yoga teaches us to go inward, it’s not about using someone else’s practice to gauge your own; looking to the outside. Noticing what others have and what you don’t is the path to destructive unhappiness.
Are you basing the ideals of your happiness on a standardized definition, or are you liberating yourself to customize your interpretation to what truly fulfills you?
The only way to really know is through self-study (svadhyaya).
I find it very hard to believe that people have ZERO love in their life. Maybe it’s not expressed in a bouquet of flowers or a candlelight dinner, but maybe it’s demonstrated through kind words or a loyal friendship.
In the material world “customization” is expensive and highly valued because tailoring to an individual’s need is very useful. So why is it, in the spiritual realm, “different” is quickly rejected and dismissed? Most people want what is popular, not what is unique.
I hope next year, more people will attune to the distinct, extraordinary blessings in their life and come to yoga!