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Week 25: Barriers to Connection

 "You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.” - The Buddha

Yoga philosophy teaches us that there are certain mental processes that create barriers to connection. Buddhism describes these processes as the causes of suffering; classical Yoga describes them as the causes of ignorance and separation. One way that I find helpful to think about these different mental habits is to look at emotional patterns (how we typically feel) and cognitive patterns (how we typically think). Both are patterns of interpreting the world that lead to suffering and separation. 

For this week, I'd like you to reflect on the mental processes, as described below, and observe your own thoughts and emotions throughout the week (or over one day). See if there is one process in particular that shows up again and again as a barrier to connection, or a cause of suffering. Perhaps it's one emotional process, and one cognitive process. 

Starting next week, we'll explore the practices for investigating and overcoming each specific process. Practices that help us overcome these habits include meditations, intention-setting, and actions that cultivate the opposite emotion or process (what Patanjali calls pratipaksa bhavanam in the Yoga Sutras). For this week, awareness is the only goal. 

Emotional Processes:

Anger, and the desire for retaliation or revenge, or to see others experience suffering.

Guilt and shame, and the process of ruminating over our own past mistakes that keep us stuck in the past and prevent us from taking positive steps.

Desire, and the need to control others and events to ensure that we experience what we desire.

Fear or Aversion, and the process of imagining future negative outcomes, which then inhibits our behavior and limits our experiences.

Cognitive Processes:

Critical judgment, and the need to categorize and evaluate other people and our own experiences, which keeps us from seeing commonality and connection.

Projection, and the mental process of assuming things about other people based on our own experiences and motivations.

Self-centeredness, by considering only one's own well-being, or by attributing too much responsibility to oneself, and for the well-being of others.

Discuss online at:

http://openmindbody.com/discuss/