Freedom from assumption
Stop for a moment.
Take 3 big breaths.
And ask yourself, "Which assumptions are driving me, right now?"
Like it or not, your brain is brilliantly designed to work something like this: Take in new information. Transform information into assumptions. Go off into the world reacting accordingly. Resume taking in new information. Use information to confirm existing assumptions. React to the world accordingly. Repeat.
The assumptions that drive the biggest roots into our Selves are those assumptions formed when we are at our most neurologically vulnerable: when we're young and/or when we're experiencing traumatic stress. In these vulnerable times, the assumptions we form are crude, over-simplified, and biased towards a negative interpretation of -- well, everything. Then, these deeply rooted assumptions become our rules of engagement for life.
Our brain is wired like this because it helps us survive. But it doesn't always help us thrive.
To thrive we must somehow transcend the rule of assumptions that were birthed in our darkest, scariest times. We must replace the negativity bias with loving compassion for ourselves and others. We must be able to see the glass half-full. And to do all of that, we must update our neurological hard drive and delete some very old assumptions.
This is really why many of us practice mindfulness-based yoga. The physical, mental and emotional practices of yoga are re-training you to figure out what's really, actually true, right now. Through your body, nervous system, and prefrontal cortex, you discover the possibility of new assumptions that are rooted in compassion, patience, trust and abundance.
This is what inspires my yoga classes, yoga therapy sessions, twice-monthly Radically Restorative Yoga with bodywork (next one this Saturday at JP Centre Yoga), and therapeutic yoga workshops like Body Wisdom (coming up in just a few weeks at Akasha Roslindale).
It's hard work updating your internal operating system. But that's the work that will give you freedom from the assumptions that no longer serve you.
And I'm right there with you my friend. May you thrive.
~Alex
PS: Send me a note, let me know what this sparks for you. xo
