Why do you do what you do? | #17

Noticing intentions behind our actions and honing the awareness that reveals them.

Hi friends, 

As I shared in the newsletter last week, I had a really profound time at a festival called Medicine. I have been giving myself space to integrate the experience and spent lots of time cloud watching. I feel really proud about how I’ve landed back gently and integrated smoothly.

Watching clouds and allowing time to pass without anxiety or rush

 I have continued tuning into my intuition to guide how I go about my days, in the same way that I did at the festival. One thing my intuition showed me was how much I enjoy practising yoga, so I went to a class the day after I got back from the festival. My love for yoga comes from a deep appreciation for its meditative qualities and flowing through dynamic movement in my body. I like how it can be a fun and playful practice with head and arm balances while developing my strength, flexibility and balance. 

While my love for yoga is genuine, I saw that so much of my practice was still done with a mentality of unkind demands of my body with the intention of showing off my skills to the other yogis in the class. In this newsletter, I explore more of what I was noticing in yoga and also to invite you to reflect on whether these things pop up in your life too!

Recognising and shifting intentions behind our actions

There seem to be two distinct Caryns with differing intentions behind the same action. One Caryn is curious, cheeky, genuine, innocent and drawn by awe and wonderment. This side enables me to playfully interact with people and come to things without assumptions. The other Caryn is still living out the “not good enough” wound; she has a competitive nature and a desire to perform for validation.

Yesterday, while I was in a very busy yoga class of 40 or so people, my wounded side seeped its way into the intentions behind some of my yoga asanas. That part of me thought “Oh good, a busy yoga class means a bigger audience to impress.” Even in doing things I genuinely enjoy like yoga, this wounded side comes out. 

It was a very dynamic class with lots of opportunities to do inversion (read: show off). And every opportunity the teacher gave us to do a crow arm balance, a side arm balance or a headstand, I took it. I am not judging people who take the option to invert, because it is a normal and even encouraged part of a yoga practice, mine included. The part I am wanting to pull out and examine specifically is noticing that the intention behind my choice to go into an inversion is grounded in showing off. I found myself doing this throughout the hour-long practice yesterday. And I found myself guilty of it more than I expected. I was intrigued by it!

As soon as the realisation landed, I noted that I was working extra hard for each of the poses I wanted to show off in. Not only that, my whole body was tense and held in fight or flight mode, ready to compete. This is, of course, the total opposite of what a yoga practice is meant to be about! Even more amusing and confronting, I was still not ready to let go of that intention. This is a culmination of things I experienced including a traumatic feeling of abandonment when my family left Malaysia and I had to part ways with my nanny when I was nine. I also experienced feeling unseen by my parents throughout my childhood and having a dad who struggles with explosive anger. I explored this wound in depth in previous newsletters where I wrote about feeling unworthy, struggling to relax and slowly finding my way to safety. And because habitual patterns are hard to let go, I saw my ego grasping onto showing off, and pushing my body into those harder poses because I. Just. Needed. To. Prove. Myself. 

While it is arguable that outcomes matter more than intentions, I personally think intentions matter more because they are the underlying force behind our actions. They go far beyond just motivating us to do something, they speak to why what we do is being done in the first place. In my life, I find it quite important to live out my beliefs and to be true to myself. That is why the intention matters to me.

Seeing myself use yoga as a way to perform and caress my ‘not good enough’ wound was laughable in its absurdity but also jarringly real in how my ego makes me do silly things like this. I have caught myself performing for pedestrians when longboarding, especially when they hoot and cheer me on. 

Are you really doing what you are doing or are you doing something else?

Upon examination, it was shocking to see how easily any action can be done with an alternate intention! You might like to try reflecting on this for yourself. I know that it is a good opportunity to take stock of where this appears and why it is present. If you are someone for whom this does not apply, then that is incredibly wonderful. 

It is interesting to note that I tend not to be in a performative headspace when it comes to my main craft of oil painting, even though the natural outcome of painting pictures is to put it on display. I have previously experienced painting to perform but I am in that headspace less and less. My dedication to painting as a spiritual act of devotion means I find myself tapping into a state where painting is a pure form of expression rather than as a performative act. With any craft, I know it is a long and arduous process of developing skill, method and artistic vision and am committed to playing the long-term game. I treat each painting session as a chance to experiment and build my craft in a never-ending pursuit of improvement and engagement. It feels moving to know I have dedicated myself to this craft for the rest of my life and that gives me ample room to experiment, play and build out my work.  

Knowing that I can learn to release myself from these habitual patterns feels positive. I have done it with painting and I can start to do it with yoga. This post marks the beginning of me wanting to change the intention behind how I practise yoga and who for. I want to remove the habit of doing the hard postures to prove my worth. I want to practise with an intention that I can stand behind. 

While I am still working on shifting my intentions, I am grateful for this self-awareness allowing me to mentally hover over myself and see how I behave. As I do so, I am moving closer to true and authentic intentions in more and more aspects of my life. 

Love, Caryn