The Evidence of your Practice | Part 3: The Witnessing Self

This is Part 3 of a 5 part series on the evidence of your yoga practice.

If you haven't already, I encourage you to first read THIS, for the intention behind these reflections as well as Part 1 and Part 2 to get you started.

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3. You notice yourself spending more time being able to observe your experience; to be in the space of the Self who witnesses. You are actively in present moment awareness.

Whether it's the seed of a thought, or an external smell, sight, touch - there is a space, between the stimulus and our response. This is the territory of the witnessing Self.

According to the yogic tradition, each of us hold a unique and complex medley of samskaras - impressions, or mental / emotional patterns - which are both inherited and developed through life. It's a bit like being given a palette with colour in specific quantities and pigments: it leans us towards certain tones in how we paint the canvas of our experience.

Each time something happens, and we re-interpret it in the same way, it's like painting the same colour on again. The marking becomes stronger, more habitual and thus difficult to un-see.

You might notice this patterning happening within a yoga posture. You might see this in a work or home environment, when we become automatically triggered by the same irks of behaviour or speech, over and over. It could come up in moments alone (consider the harsh messages we tend to ingrain into our self-talk).

Sarah Pollok

To re-frame a situation through a clearer lens of conscious awareness is to become the witnessing Self. To recognise these markings for what they are; habitual impulses, which can often lead us toward sub-conscious and self-imposed suffering. When we can see this, we can also consciously choose to NOT take the path of least resistance; to create instead new patterns of seeing, moving, understanding.

This is called vidya - clear awareness or insight - as opposed to avidya, ignorance.

We cease asking questions of victimhood or suffering - 'Why is this happening to me?' and instead, develop the capacity to lean into more revealing enquiry - 'What is this showing me about my conditioning?' In time and with practice, the essence of yoga - whether it’s asana, pranayama or meditation - becomes an enquiry of intangible mind, via the physical body.

What is it about these words I react to so strongly? Why is it I'm really striving to deepen this backbend so forcefully? Why do I assume ‘I can’t meditate’?

Pranayama (breath work) is a particularly direct way of accessing this witnessing Self. We realise that just like the breath - taking in, transforming, releasing out, revealing - there is a constant flow between inner and outer states: a conversation. Through this, every interaction becomes a potential teacher for self-realisation.

Simple, but also challenging. With commitment, with steady practice, we become more able, more willing, to watch and lean into a truer experience.

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REFLECTION + PRACTICE

1. What is an occasion or trigger which used to prompt an impulsive/unconscious response, but now can be viewed with more spaciousness? It may be something very subtle, or even seemingly insignificant.

2. What feels different now, in your body, breath, or mind-space, when the occasion arises?

3. Write down is a current situation where you feel tension - for example, when a topic comes up with your partner, when you need to address a certain task or visit a certain place.
   In the time of writing this, the climate emergency propelled by the Australian bushfires is at the forefront of attention - it may even be this more general uncertainty or distress.

4. What is a word you might use as an invocation of stepping back, into a broader witnessing Self?
   If unsure, you might try using the words 'this moment', as a reminder of presence: a mantra (mind-vehicle / protector).

5. Every time you find yourself tightening, speak the mantra, with breath.
   Inhale - 'this moment' - exhale - 'this moment'.
   Once, twice, three times - as many as you need to feel the stepping back, the broadening. You might consider this as a wave which softens the edges of this tightening, gently. This breath. Then the next breath.
   
   Pause here, and see the fuller picture of this moment, as it is. Witness the whole canvas, and recognise the markings of your conditioning as just markings.

This exploration is itself a conversation, and our practices a constant evolving journey. Please feel free to comment with what strikes a chord with you, or send me a message. I'd love to hear about what you discover, and how we might better support and celebrate each other, in community.

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