Ahimsa Yama: 10 Yamas & Niyamas

Ahimsa Yama - Creating Less Harm

There are 10 Yamas and 10 Niyamas - yogic take on human values and ethical practices that help us reach our full potential for personal, spiritual, and professional growth, and to liberate us from the repetitive cycle of suffering. When we live in contradiction to the highest values, when we avoid taking the higher road - we get stuck in a rat.

This month, we are implementing Ahimsa Yama into our lives - the daily practice of doing less harm, and self-inquiry to see which our unconscious patterns that cause it. Leaning into awareness, we can adopt smarter habits to take better care of our health, each other and our planet Earth collectively. We will build more sustainable movement habits, thinking longevity with better postural alignment using the props in classes. Join us in looking into our own false beliefs about self-medicating, to reveal the stories we tell ourselves to make that self-harm acceptable. With practice, we get to observe our behavior, the inner workings of our mind, how we relate to situations, what drives our reactions, and what fuels our addictions, resistance, rumination, and procrastination. Lets shine the light onto the obvious and not-so-obvious paths to creating less harm.

7 Ways of Daily Ahimsa Practice:

1. Addictions: what external substances (pills, vapes, plants, alcohol, sugar) do I abuse everyday? Addictions are always a hidden way of harm, and can only be conquered by TRUTH and ACCEPTANCE, followed by using professional help. Asking for help is the smartest and most loving thing we can do for ourselves, our loved ones, and our community.

2. Daily habits: let's stop driving and texting, scrolling and crossing the streets, moving too fast, having our hands full while walking downstairs, put firm limits on our APPs and TV, develop an earlier bedtime routine, dedicate an hour to spend outside, take a workout or meditation class to minimize our screen time.

3. Let go of the victim mentality and stop blaming people for our distress, emotional or financial. Learning to take responsibility for any conflict, and apologizing with ease. This does not apply to aggressive and violent behavior - please stay safe and reach out for help whenever exposed to any violence.

4. Forgive yourself and others 100% everyday. EVERYONE, EVERY DAY. This is a follow-up to taking honest action on steps 1-3.

5. Environment: commit once and for all to never buy drinks in plastic bottles, and reduce or try to eliminate other single-use plastic daily use like shampoos, soaps, and food packaging. Buy food that is in season and comes from local sources as much as possible. Watch my VIDEO below with some zero-waste products that I love, and please join Caitlin me for the International Ocean Film Festival April 11-13 >

6. Community: being inclusive, respectful, honest & generous towards all. All our unhealthy relationships, competition, fear of each other, racism and the need to control one another create psychological trauma that contributes to all diseases, cancer, and immune dysfunction. Know that what we judge and conflict with only points us to the part of ourselves that needs work & healing.

7. Relationships: following the Golden Rule, or the Law of Karma: our actions will always cause a consequence. If someone's done you 'wrong' - contemplate when may you have unconsciously done that previously yourself. Treat others as you'd like to be treated. Assert your values with clear communication and boundaries, and do your part to act on them accordingly.

What other ways I did not mention but would be your way to create less harm? Contemplate it this month and share it with us in classes!

The material on my blog cannot be shared or quoted without my permission. Thank you for reading!

...continue reading below