Wanderlust The Power of Our Internal Dialogue

This magazine article includes an excerpt from the book, Yoga Happy, by Hannah Barrett, to be published in January 2022. Pre-order your copy here.

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Put simply, your “internal dialogue” is your thoughts. That inner voice that comments on your life, consciously and unconsciously. Yoga helps us recognize our thoughts, find patterns or habits and study them to free ourselves from them and thrive in life on all levels.

The fourth niyama is svadhyaya, or "self-study," and is about knowing our true identity. In the book The Yamas and Niyamas by Deborah Adele, Deborah describes man as a diamond ring wrapped in many boxes or layers. These layers are created from our personal experience: our childhood, education, wealth, place of birth and so on, everything flows into them. Svadhyaya helps us understand these layers.

Yoga reminds us that we are the core, not these layers, and part of the idea of ​​self-study is to remember our true identity. It helps us understand our layers and why they are there. This, in turn, helps us understand why we act or react a certain way. For example, if your childhood lacked compassion and you were punished for every mistake you made, you may still carry that experience with you.

When you or others make a mistake, your mind immediately thinks of punishment, whereas humans make mistakes and punishment should not be the immediate or only reaction. We can treat mistakes with empathy, compassion and understanding. There is a beautiful quote from a poem by the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi that says: “Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that makes flowers grow, not thunder.”

We go into more detail on pages 114-121, but self-study is a useful concept to keep in mind as we consider the words we think and speak and why certain habits or thought patterns may arise.

As you build your yoga practice, both on and off the mat, you need to support yourself with positive self-talk, compassion, and understanding. This will make it easier to maintain a yoga habit.

When we think of some of the yamas that we have already discussed (see page 126), they remind us of that. For example, finding ahimsa (or non-violence) and kindness to yourself; knowing that it is difficult to maintain a yoga habit in this modern world and having empathy for yourself if you find the physical practice challenging or if you only have three minutes today to stop and breathe.

Satya is truthfulness and can be reflected in a realistic yoga plan. How many times have you planned on squeezing everything into your day, leaving no time for breaks or things that weren't expected? This can lead to a sense of failure if we don't accomplish everything we set out to do. In reality, if we had been honest and realistic with ourselves at the beginning of the day, we would have felt the opposite. So when you think of a yoga plan, find truth and realistic expectations.

When your internal dialogue is filled with negativity and you constantly beat yourself up for the smallest offences, it creates unrest in you. As I learned to change my perspective and change the way I spoke to myself, challenging those negative thoughts and replacing them with kindness, it changed me as a person.

It's not just a fake-it-til-you-made-it mentality. It's not about pretending everything is absolutely amazing (that, too, can lead to inner turmoil). It's more about recognizing negative thoughts and feelings and remembering that you have the power to rewrite the narrative and reframe your thoughts. We need to be reminded of what is positive, not just within ourselves but all around us, so that we have the tools to deal with it when things aren't so easy.

One thing that has changed me over the last few years is giving myself the love, respect and compassion that I would give to a friend (again in relation to ahimsa and non-violence). Think back to a time when something bad happened – big or small – that you struggled with; Maybe it was forgetting to pick something up, breaking something valuable, or missing a deadline. Think of the way you spoke to yourself, the harsh words you used.

Now think of someone close to you that you love – a partner, a friend, a family member. If they had done the same what would you have said? The answer is probably that you would have had empathy and reminded them that we are not robots, we are actually human in a deeply chaotic world. Things go wrong, we forget things, we screw it up. But if you keep putting yourself down for these things, you can't grow. What will help you grow is to reverse that inner voice and understand why it happened and think about how you can prevent it from happening again.

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Hannah Barrett is a London-based yoga teacher who helps students around the world feel confident and find strength on the mat. With 400 hours of Yoga Alliance training and a specialization in Anatomy, she also has a 42 hour Pregnancy Teacher Training and a 75 hour Postnatal Training. Teaching women before and after childbirth is a Hannah specialty, but she equally enjoys teaching all students to find their fire and power from within. Her style is dynamic, playful, anatomical and challenging, yet always accessible, with the intention of empowering you to create strength, resilience and connection, to feel grounded and have fun in the process. She is known for strengths-based creative flows with fun and unexpected transitions and modifications to make the flows accessible to everyone.

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