The Big Three Pt. 1

Fire.

Have you ever had a cycle in your life that you just keep seeing over and over again? Do you have a goal you just can’t seem to get past the finish line (or even get started)? Progress seems so easily thwarted sometimes doesn’t it? What do we do about it? How do we ever really truly create change?
Is it even possible?!
When clients first come to me to begin private work together they are often in a swirl of all of the above. And here is what I know to be true…

I have a definite answer to the last question- YES is it possible! I have seen it so many times over the years with students and clients I have worked with. Exactly how change happens is different for each person but there is a formula you can start to incorporate at home. And it’s called Kriya Yoga.

Given to us over 2000 years ago as part of The Yoga Sutras (though it likely existed long before it was written down), you might think it would be an ancient out dated strategy that’s also hard to understand- but it’s not! Kriya Yoga is basically a simple three step action list to create transformation and ultimately self realization. The three steps combined are said to all that is needed to create true change. If you aren’t seeing change where you want it- check in with these three things and I can bet you will figure out why and exactly what is needed to get you back on track.

Today we start with Part 1- Tapas.

And no I don’t mean the Spanish small bites. In Sanskrit Tapas means fire aka drive. To create a change of any kind- you have to want it- you have to want it with a fire so fierce it can alchemy water into gold. So when you think of this area of your life that you want to change- would you say to have a strong desire for it? “YESSSSSSSS of course I do, it’s all I think about!!” You might say. But there in lies the rub- when we say Tapas we don’t mean that the desire is limited to your thoughts we mean to what degree are you willing to move out into the world and move into action! Creating change means you have to actually create a change out in the world. Too many of us get stuck in the mind space and our goals never see the light of day.

But today I am going to let you in on a HUGE secret I have learned over the past 25 years of my own yoga practice and more than a decade of hold space as a yoga therapist- Tapas does NOT need to come in giant, scary, overwhelming steps. Sure, sometimes it does and thats great but, more often than not when I see people stumble the most, it is when they decide to make a huge change all at once. Why? Because those are often NOT sustainable. You are just not likely to go from not working out at all to working out everyday for two hours, forever. You might for a week or two but eventually- you’ll fry out and just stop again. Going back to where you started. Just like when making a real fire- a great fire is built up slowly over time, it burns deep and long and strong. If you use one of those fake fire starters, you’ll get a ton of flame up front but in a few moments the flame is gone and so is your fire! We need to stoke a slow consistent flame that grows overtime and doesn’t burn out.

When we instead create tiny, extremely doable steps for ourselves- steps that actually feel like “that’s too easy!”, (think 10min daily walk instead of a two hour workout) and take them one at a time, something magical happens- we stick to it! it’s “easy” so we do it. And you know what- because we are doing it, we keep doing it and because it becomes part of our routine it becomes easy to think of adding more in, so we do. And slowly but surely we expereince the divinity of naturally arising change. We easefully move more and more in the direction we want to go in and it sprouts more and more lasting change in our lives.

And I’ll let you in on another secret- your ego, the lower self, whose job it is to keep you stuck and unhappy, they don’t want you to know this secret. They want you to continue to think that if it’s not painful it can’t possibly be creating change. But who wants to do painful things- no body!- so who would create a change that involves pain- nobody!- so what happens to the changes we want to make? They get stuck inside our minds torturing us- that’s what! That is until we learn the magic of the baby step and decide to take a leap and try something new, and easy and often free!

And so today maybe you grab your journal or the ear of a trusted friend and you disect what your goal is and what a tiny, doable Tapas step would be.

Ill even include a little worksheet for you to print out to help! Don’t try to do it all- for today just do step one and come back for the rest of the steps HERE.