Growth

I have this desire to grow, to expand beyond my limitations.

One of the words yoga gives these limitations is vasana. A vasana is a colouring or a tendency - it starts as an impression you had of an experience, and either because it was a big experience that rocked your world or a smaller experience that happened repeatedly, this impression wore a groove so deep in your mind that it became a belief, it shaped your habits, your personality and your worldview.

Uncovering a negative vasana can feel kind of devastating at first, there’s this sense of “that’s what I believe?!? that’s so f@%ked up”, this feeling that there is something wrong with me, that I am broken in some way.

But now I can see a little more clearly - I realise how much of my personality and the way that I act is influenced by that vasana and it makes sense why my life is unfolding in a certain way.

A feeling of utter relief washes over me - the kind of relief you feel when you tell someone your deepest, darkest secret, and then it’s no longer a secret.

This relief opens up into the most beautiful moment of possibility, of imagining who I could become if this belief wasn’t mine anymore.

And then the work to dissolve the vasana begins (yoga shows us how). My goodness I love this practice.