Exploring sideways on our yoga mat usually means side bending, twisting or the Vashistasana side plank family. Off the mat sideways is a word used to describe a direction, what happens when plans get derailed or maybe if you’re a Dierks Bentley fan having a few too many drinks 😉. Seriously though, when something goes sideways most of us immediately identify with something going wrong or off course. Yoga suggests a different explanation. Instead, sideways offers a chance to take a different path and see some different scenery along the way. When plans take on an alternative route, the opportunity for refinement presents itself. We may even be inspired to change course completely.

As humans we battle attachment hourly. Attached to devices, attached to agendas/to do lists, attached to outcomes. Yoga is the practice of non-attachment or Aparigraha. This is one of the central teachings in the Yogic text the Bhagavad Gita and the last Yama in Patanjali’s 8 Limbs of Yoga. Yoga dares us to only concern ourselves with what we’re doing now, in the present moment. Do your best, forget the rest. For example, how often do we spend more time worrying about what might come of the effort we put into a project at work, an event we’re planning or a meal we’re preparing that we never really enjoy the work itself? So often we worry if we’ll be successful enough, or ‘good enough’ we often forget why we started or why we are working so hard in the first place. Can you do the thing for the love of doing the thing, not for the reward or result?

Yes of course, in modern day life, it is important for us to have certain material objects so we can live without excess struggle. But hoarding things and/or becoming obsessed with material possessions results in these possessions controlling our life. Who takes better care of their cell phones then themselves? Seeing material objects simply as tools which help us to accomplish our goals in life will free us from being controlled by these objects. Enter yoga.

Implementing the practice of Aparigraha on your yoga mat can be as simple as deciding to let go of something. For example, let go of doing the pose perfectly or doing the hardest variation or better yet, that your value as a human somehow depends on how ‘well’ you do the pose. Simple, yes but not always easy. That’s yoga for you. However, when we practice this we are letting go of fear of change, loss, success being determined by outcome rather than effort and what we learn/see along the path. We can break free of habitual ways of thinking and/or doing and no longer be controlled by results.