The Foundation Beneath Us
It seems with each new year the quality, the art, the intricate details of our lives are slowly fading. A house seems to be a fitting metaphor. Rather than bricks being placed one by one, new houses are thrown up in just a couple months, an amalgamation of 2x4’s and plastic siding. Inside the furniture is built by following a manual rather than being the craft of a seasoned woodcarver. Each object in a home used to have a life, a spirit, and an essence of personality. Where is the personality inside of gray walls, straight edges, and plastic? But more importantly, for how long will living in this way be sustainable, for our Earth and for us? As we’ve changed our relationship to how we collectively relate to our environment, one of the key factors to support our personal foundation, it seems our internal foundation and the way we relate to the concept of foundation as a whole has lost its quality and become quite unstable.
In the Yoga Sutras, the posture practice or Asana is translated as, “a steady, comfortable posture. (Sutra 2.46).” In order to achieve a posture that is steady and comfortable there must first be a stable foundation. A foundation is the lowest load bearing point, this could be the base of a physical structure or the weight carried inside, emotions, history, the breadth of human experience. We’ve all experienced a time when this felt a bit heavier or lighter. But we’re taught to look outside to find a solution to our instability or uncomfortable relationship with life. Perhaps we think Yoga might make us feel better, so we try to learn the poses, or maybe we think plant medicine will be our savior, or CrossFit, or the dream partner, or the next vacation. None of these things are inherently problematic. But when we approach a tradition or experience with only the intention of extracting what feels good or immediately gratifying, we unknowingly begin with a fracture in our foundation. It’s like trying to build a house by skipping the blueprint and jumping straight to painting the walls. The house may end up looking “finished,” but it won’t hold up in a storm. The harm isn’t always dramatic, sometimes it’s subtle. We feel more untethered, more confused, more disconnected than when we started, because the thing we reached for was never meant to be consumed in fragments. Yoga, plant medicine, spiritual work, even fitness/diet culture, these aren’t meant to be quick fixes. When we sever the roots from the fruit, we lose access to nourishment. The sweetness becomes entirely nonexistent. And ironically, the thing we hoped would bring us back to ourselves can instead lead us further away.
And sometimes the consequences aren’t only emotional or existential. When we bypass the depth of a tradition, we risk causing actual harm both to ourselves and to the cultures that have held these teachings. Not because we are “bad,” but because something has been taken out of its container. When we use the pieces we like and ignore the rest, we unintentionally contribute to erasure. We water down something that was never meant to be diluted.
I wouldn’t be any fun if I didn’t talk about the flip side. What happens when we actually choose to develop a quality, stable foundation? Something beautiful and nourishing can flourish.
In Yoga this can begin with the Yamas and Niyamas. They are often described as the moral compass or the ethical heart of yoga. But more simply, I think of them as a way of remembering how to be in right relationship with life. They ask us to slow down, to pay attention, to honor the unseen architecture that everything meaningful rests upon. Before the poses, before the retreats, there is this invitation: cultivate a foundation of sensitivity, honesty, generosity, balance, freedom, purity, contentment, discipline, introspection, and trust. Without these principles, yoga becomes another quick hit of self-improvement. With them, it becomes a practice of returning to wholeness. If we want our lives to feel steady, if we want our practices to support us rather than scatter us, we have to be willing to build slowly. Brick by brick. Breath by breath. The Yamas and Niyamas strengthen the unseen beams of our internal home so everything we place on top can rest on something real.
If this exploration speaks to you, I’d love to invite you to my upcoming Introduction to the Yamas and Niyamas workshop. It’s a space for slowing down, reconnecting, and restoring the roots that your practice grows from. Following the workshop I’ll also be guiding a 10-month book study and sharing circle where we walk through these teachings one month at a time, slowly, intentionally, and together in companion with Deborah Adele’s, “The Yamas and Niyamas”. Consider this your personal invitation to begin again at the foundation. We can revisit this place a thousand times, and it will always meet us with something new.