Yoga With Pamela McDowell

I’ve been listening to a book about happiness (Authentic Happiness by Martin E.P. Seligman). The author was talking about pleasures and gratifications and the roles each play in happiness.

In his vocabulary, pleasures were things like eating chocolate, enjoying a glass of wine, watching a movie or shopping. They are sensory experiences, with little or no effort required.

The gratifications were things like engaging in dance, climbing a mountain, creating art or writing a book. These were things were someone could enter the “flow” and loose track of time and self consciousness.

These gratifications are things that may not have any apparent positive emotion while one is engaging in the activity, but may be viewed in strong positive emotions afterward.

The interesting thing about this is that people who regularly spent more time with gratifications tended to have less depression than those who spent more time with indulgences.

I’d like to venture a (partial) yoga-based explanation for this…

For one, what Seligman called gratifications were activities that require conscious participation. Effort is needed on your part to get started – although you may continue with very little effort once underway. Painting, singing and designing a building require concentration and focus which alters your mental activity.

The pleasures are more about indulgences. Turning on the TV requires very little effort, and once the TV is up and running your mind is being strung along with little control or effort on your part. Some of the other indulgences – such as consuming chocolate or having a good glass of wine – may induce a momentary “blip” in your mental process, but quickly you return more or less to your normal mental activity.

So, there is something special about engaging fully with mind, body and spirit, in an activity that brings us closer to our human potential. And maybe we’re happier when fully engaging in life, because deep down inside we know that we’re here to do some of that.

And, engaging fully in meaningful activities slow the activities of the mind – one of the objectives in yoga.

That’s not to say the pleasurable indulgences are a bad thing, just that they don’t seem to have much lasting effect on happiness.

You may have started to connect the dots on how to apply Seligman’s observation to improving your mood with yoga…

First, how often are you actually practicing yoga? Is it a once or twice a week affair, or something you do every day?

What is your attitude and where is your focus while you’re practicing? Are you fully engaged in your breath and movement – or are you comparing your forward bend to your neighbor’s?

And what are you doing off the mat? Do you engage in meaningful activities or are you more likely to plop in front of the TV?

And when you are engaging in activities, are your mind. body and emotions all engaged productively in the process?

While there are specific techniques you can use in yoga to overcome depression, the first steps are awareness and attention… how are you doing the yoga you practice now? How does your practice fit into the bigger picture of your life?

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Tags: Health Tips, Yoga Philosophy, Yoga Practice Tips, Yoga Techniques //