Posts In: aparigraha

by Laura McCorry

I’m still rather new to minimalism. I love the concept – a clutter-free home that invites both unexpected guests and private relaxation. But the practice of de-owning often feels overwhelming and exhausting.

In July, I was invited to participate in a 30-day declutter group hosted online. It was great to have the support of other people in the group and to have a pre-set monthly schedule of different areas of the house to tackle each day. It usually didn’t take me more than ten or fifteen minutes, and every day I found items I could place in a large cardboard box marked for donation.

Then the cardboard box sat in a corner of my bedroom for three months. Does this sound familiar? Sometimes the follow-through is the hardest part. But just last week – last week! – I made a trip to a household hazardous waste site (don’t throw your batteries in the trash, people!), electronics recycling, and a local charity that accepts household and clothing donations. It only took about an hour.

When it doesn’t take very much time, why is it still so hard to let go?

So often in life, I find myself clinging and grasping. I keep letters from loved ones, gifts that remind me of people, books that remind me of people. I try to hold on to the idea and experience of my toddler as an infant, and I feel a kind of desperation every time I realize another day has finished, never to return.

One of the eight limbs of Yoga is Aparigraha, which translates as non-greed, non-attachment, non-grasping. Fear teaches us to cling tight, even to things which can’t be held. When we let go, maybe prying open one finger at a time, we find Trust, Plenitude, Equanimity. (These words that don’t have an everyday coinage because they’re so frequently out of circulation.)

To what (or to whom) do you find yourself clinging most often? Is there physical or emotional baggage holding you back from feeling a sense of peace with the present moment?

Yoga’s emphasis on the present moment actually helps me to be a better minimalist. When I shift my focus to what actually matters, right this very moment, it’s easier to see how so many objects in my life belong to the past or to an as-yet-unrealized future. As Autumn’s full glory approaches, I intend to simplify my home and my routines, letting go of excess to better appreciate the things, people, and routines that serve me best right now.

Thoreau himself embraced yogic values with his injunction to “simplify, simplify.” Let go of grasping and see what fills your hands and your heart.

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura(AT)yogaonesandiego(DOT)com

by Laura McCorry

As a new yoga teacher, I was in love with everything yoga. I wanted to soak it all in and learn as much as I possibly could so that when my training was over, I could go out into the world and help people move and feel better in their bodies.

I diligently memorized all the Sanskrit names and their English translations. I practiced saying both names whenever I taught a class (and I’m a bit embarrassed to think how many Sanskrit names I’ve now forgotten). But there was one pose, one name, for which I always used the Sanskrit: savasana.

After yoga and namaste, it’s probably the most-recognized Sanskrit word, so you can get away with not saying its translation. I’ve used “final relaxation” to explain savasana in many classes. But here are the words I’ve avoided saying for so many years:

Corpse Pose.

I was reminded of the proper translation this week. I had just finished leading a restorative yoga class and everyone in the room was lying down on their mats, not moving. This is the most relaxing part of yoga, the culmination of the previous hour and the time when the body receives the greatest benefit from the practice.

And I remembered that savasana meant corpse pose and I felt a chill go up my spine to see a room full of people, essentially “practicing” death. In that moment, I realized how much easier it was for me to be the teacher, to sit on my mat and stay “awake” so I could guide them out of savasana when the time was right.

My level of comfort with death ranges from “not very” to “nope, this is not even a little bit okay.” And I know I’m not alone. Our culture pushes death outside the realm of public discourse. We cover it up in medical jargon and leave death in the hands of hospice and the funeral home – anything to create some distance between us, the living, and the-thing-we-fear-above-all- fears.

So there’s something profoundly radical about the practice of yoga ending each session with the practice of death.

It flies in the face of popular culture which would rather pay attention to the youngest, newest, brightest thing under the sun. Which helps explain why savasana at some of the trendier, more corporate-feeling yoga studios can be so short – sometimes no more than two minutes.

How long savasana should last is a matter of debate in the yoga world, but the goal is long enough for you (your essence/spirit/soul) to surrender you (the body/mind). To truly practice corpse pose, you must recognize your Self as separate from your body. This acknowledgement can take years to manifest because we are very attached to our bodies in both a literal and psychological sense.

One of yoga’s primary tenets is the yama of non-attachment, aparigraha. It is natural for us to cling to things, to hold on tight to the people we love and the experiences of our body. But yoga teaches that You are not your body. In order to be free, to experience samadhi, or union with the divine, you must let go. Surrender. And yes, even practice death.

I believe that fear and discomfort can only ever hold us back from the fullness of life. We are meant to be alive. We are meant to fully enjoy this beautiful world and to live abundantly. I hope that over time, this practice of yoga continues to mold me, body, mind and spirit until I can one day acknowledge death without fear. Until the practices of living and dying can peacefully coexist that I might move with greater ease through this experience of life. And I wish the same for you.

**This post was partly inspired by Contributing Writer, Monique Minahan’s piece When I’m Gone Please Don’t Have a Funeral on Huffington Post. Thank you Monique for always writing from your heart!

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura@yogaonesandiego.com

by Laura McCorry

Have you always admired that person with the clutter-free, minimalist home but assumed it was a mythical ideal you’d never achieve? Minimalism doesn’t have to be a complete lifestyle change that has you throwing out all your stuff!

Increasing your awareness of how you interact with objects in everyday life can be hugely beneficial to your yoga practice, too. Minimalism is essentially the practice of Aparigraha – the yogic principle of non-hoarding, or non-possesiveness, and one of the five Yamas which describe a code of moral behavior.

Here are five easy steps you can take to make a minimalist impact on your day to day:

1. Identify everyday chores and do them everyday. Make the bed. Do the dishes. These will be different for everyone, but choose no more than five chores that you consider essential to enjoying your time at home. Take the time to accomplish these tasks first and then allow yourself to enjoy their completion. Learning to appreciate the everyday maintenance work you do is an important step towards feeling content with what you already have.

2. Take note of your shopping and buying habits. When do you accumulate more items in your home? Write down or think about everything new to cross your threshold in the last two weeks and decide if these items were things that you needed or things that you wanted. Becoming aware of the accumulation process will help you reduce the number of new things you bring into your home in the first place, which goes a long way towards eliminating the need to sort and downsize.

3. Start a give-away box and actually give it away. One of the major tenets of minimalism is actually down-sizing and living with less (surprise!). Pick a room or a closet or even just a shelf and get rid of any object you haven’t used in the last year. You can even start this task by mentally sorting ahead of time and then moving quickly through the manual sorting into keep and giveaway. Anything you couldn’t remember being in that location should automatically be considered for giveaway.

Another technique is to take everything out of the space, clean it thoroughly and then only put back what you want to keep. At the end of the day, take the box to your local thrift store. Take the time to enjoy your newly refreshed space.

4. Identify and eliminate redundancies. It’s natural to desire change and to update items in your home with the newest or trendiest version. If this is important to you, it doesn’t mean you can’t be a minimalist! The trick is to let go of the older version or the excess of what you already have.

Pick a category of items and decide how many of those items you need for your household to function well. Some categories to consider: cleaning supplies, linens, clothing, mugs or dish ware, and entertainment items like books, CDs and DVDs. When you change your focus from trying to carefully re-organize a closet to fit all the things to identifying the function of each thing, it becomes easy to see duplicates (or even triplicates) that can be let go.

5. Use sorting as an opportunity to give a gift to a friend. Sometimes just giving away items can feel overwhelming, especially if they were a gift or have sentimental value. For example, I recently decided to significantly downsize my jewelry and only keep what I regularly wear. There were many pieces with meaning from an earlier time in my life which I didn’t wear anymore and a surprising number of pieces I’d never liked in the first place. Some went straight to giveaway but others I chose to send to close friends who might enjoy them, writing a short note to say hello at the same time. It was a great way to pass on the jewelry I didn’t want to give away as well as reaffirm old friendships.

If you’re just getting started on your minimalist journey, start small and feel proud when you attempt even one of these suggestions. It takes time and dedication to see all the ways our mainstream “more is better” culture influences daily life. If you get stuck along the way, repeat this minimalist mantra: have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura@yogaonesandiego.com