Life Through A Yogic Lens #1 - how do we consciously break patterning?

How do we consciously break patterning? - Ingrid Nilson

The key to consciously breaking a pattern is to first come into an awareness as to the link between belief, emotion, and outcome.  Often we have to work this backwards.  First we experience the outcome, we recognize that emotion is not positive, and then we link it back to the belief.  

For example,  your boyfriend gets akward and distant whenever you are really upset about something, you connect this to wanting him to help you feel good about yourself, because in fact, you are feeling unworthy of love, or are emotionally unavailable to yourself, and therefore illicit the mirror of him seeming emotionally unavailable.


We must be willing to acknowledge that anything in our reality that holds an uncomfortable or negative response or emotion in us, is in fact, our mirror.  The event is mirroring something in us that is unresolved.  We can't change how others behave.  But we do have the power to bring to the surface and consciously resolve whatever pain that event triggered in us.

"Vairagya" - or Non-attachment is a quality that can be strengthen with the practice of Antar Mouna (Inner Silence).   It is a practice that allows you to be able to WITNESS the Vrittis (disturbances or chatter) in the mind and remove the emotional attachment to these.  By doing this you shift the flow of unconscious manifestation of mind - emotion - outcome.  

For example, to continue the hypothetical scene above, by becoming emotionally available to ourselves.  Not needing the outside to behave in a certain way for us to feel secure, to feel loved, to feel supported.  All of these qualities are within us.  That is where the work is, to find these inside of ourselves.  Using the outside world as a mirror, a testing station for our evolution.


To consciously break a pattern we need to take responsibility for that pattern being about us, and not "them".  We need to witness the connection that plays out in our perception of reality.  We then consciously decipher the belief that is holding the pain.  Change it. And then surrender to a new reality.  For yogi's using this system, this is often why we have a teacher, someone who can help you navigate and clear the debris and supports you to use these systems to understand yourself better.  As all of these patterns are coming from the unconscious mind.  It takes effort, discrimination and discernment to peel the layers.

Anything that is not love, understanding, compassion, and surrendered.... is not real.  It is a perception that is asking to be peeled away.  from negative. to positive. and eventually to transcendence of both the Raga and Dvesha (likes and dislikes of our human reality) into Yog.