Action expresses priorities

Mahatma Gandhi

Action Expresses Priorities

Is your yoga practice alive this Winter? Or is it temporarily "on hold" because you are too busy? Or is it temporarily on hold because you have other priorities?

I sometimes wonder what is behind our priorities. Are we really honest with ourselves, or are we just making excuses?

And ultimately, maybe we actually have to start by evaluating our action as this might as well be the most honest way to find out about what we truly prioritise.

 

As I'm writing this post, I decided to first check in with myself and have a look at my actions and the priorities behind them.

Here are the top 5 I discovered.

1. Relationships
2. Health
3. Growth + play
4. Creating + giving
5. A feeling of stability

Relationships with others is something we can't underrate. Interviews with nurses who take care of dying people say that on our deathbeds we don't regret what we earned or achieved. We just wish we had spent more quality time with our loved ones. Maybe there is no need to wait until we're close to dying to remember how precious our relationships really are and prioritise them while we're alive?

Health is something that we don't think about as long as we have it, right? And the minute we are consumed by pain, health becomes like oxygen - invisible "default" and yet essential for survival. It makes way more sense to cultivate strong health while we can, and really make it our very high priority. With yoga + meditation + Ayurveda we can create radiant unshakeable health both physically and mentally. So they essentially are the "support pillars" of this priority for me.

Growth and play are high priorities for me because they infuse life with so much meaning, but also with fun! Imagine for a minute that you no longer had a motivation to learn, grow and evolve? Even if you are in a happy place to begin with, without continued growth, life would soon feel stagnant like a swamp. If we stop learning, playing and being curious, we're only half alive. So I urge you to remember your inner child who is on an ongoing mission to discover, learn, grow and play, and plan some courses, trainings and travels that excite you this year to feed it with inspiration.

Creating and giving is another big priority for me. It became a mission in a way, and I no longer see my life without creating yoga retreats, trainings, meditations and music. Some of these are my work, and some - a free offering that can help those who are maybe not in position to pay. In the end of the day what is relevant is that what I do every day helps and enriches someone's life, and that in itself is such a precious task.

A feeling of stability is just a feeling - probably real stability doesn't really exist after all, as everything around us is in a state of constant change. And yet as humans, we do need a little bit of this feeling, as otherwise we tend to experience fear, stress and anxiety. So with full realisation of how a feeling of stability is an illusion, one of my priorities is to have just enough of this feeling to not get too worried and to be able to focus on the other four!

What about you? What are your priorities and why? Do your actions actually express them?


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