Yogi Wisdom: Introduction & How to Use Your Words to Give You a Better Life

Yoga is not only certain poses, or asanas, to sit and look pretty in, it is an actual way of life. It is how and what we eat, how we speak and communicate with others and ourselves, it is meditating, and it is how we reach our goals in life and what we internally value. While this is a very broad over generalization of a culture, a science, a religion and essentially a lifestyle that was established thousands of years ago, I will do a mini deep dive every week of how to best get into the yogi mindset and how you, and I, can use it to try to get our own versions of deeply fulfilling and healthy life.

You might be wondering why now, why her? Well my friends, I am very excited to say that after practicing intensely and becoming deeply obsessed with yoga for the past 18 months, I have decided to pursue my 200 hour yoga journey. And this is where I will take you with me on my journey. OF course, I will never be able to do justice the words of the famous yoga gurus or the way of living, healing and uplifting that they have established, but I will try my best and live through my interpretations, as that is all any of us can do. I will use the help and guidance of my teachers and yoga books that I will bring on this journey.

With that being said, today’s yogi wisdom will begin with a little self-love inspiration from Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements. Agreement number one is how to live a life that will make you happy, simply by the use and choice of your words. Let’s start with how our word choice can affect us personally, meaning how we speak to ourselves and why its so important to think of what we say to ourselves as it can affect us more than we know. Negative self-talk and negative self-talk of others can even be addicting, so why not get addicted to positive talk instead? Okay, now the quote:

“Tell yourself how wonderful you are, how great you are. Tell yourself how much you love yourself. Use the word to break all of those teeny, tiny agreements that make you suffer… Just this one agreement can change your whole life… it can lead you to personal freedom, to huge success and abundance; it can take away all your fear and transform it into joy and love.”

How we speak to ourselves can change our whole outlook on life and can even change the events of our life. Have you ever told yourself over and over again that you can’t do something, it's too hard, chasing your dreams is wishful thinking and that you will fail anyway? We’ve all done it but we need to change that to, “I can do it, it’s hard but it’s worth it and I can still achieve even the hardest things.” Our thoughts have the power to trick ourselves into believing whatever they say. You think that you can’t do hard things? Well, then you won’t be able to. Your brain will block that action and you will fail and you will say “see, I told you I would fail, now Im never going to try again.” But, that is your brain’s self fulfilling prophecy. It was only believing what you were telling it. Let’s change it to “I can, I will” and see how your life changes.

This can also be extended into how you talk to others or what others say to you as well. It’s possible that you are a “I can do it” person surrounded by “you’re never going to get it” people. It’s difficult to continue believing in yourself or to even start believing in yourself, but it’s your life that is being influenced. If you start believing what other people say, then you will get in the pattern that I explained above. You will start failing and you won’t try again. But, its so important to break that pattern and know that when people tell you things to hurt you either by accident or on purpose, it is simply a projection of their own reality and nothing they do is because of you. You are not responsible for other people’s actions or words, but this is getting into another topic that we will discuss.

For now, our takeaway is to say only what you mean, to others and yourself and in the words of Ruiz, “use the power of your word in the direction of love.” Let’s start believing in ourselves and our dreams and start acting like anything is possible, because it really is.