This weekend I attended a Yoga Nidra retreat. The practice of Yoga Nidra is designed to resolve subconscious blocks without doing anything. Pretty cool idea. My intentions in going were to create SPACE for myself to simply BE (I deeply believe that we DO way more than we need to for a prosperous life), and to expose myself to yet another idea about transformation. I’ll let you know if I become a convert. I was loving the alignment between some of the teachings of the weekend with the work I do. Of course as a former math geek I love that they started with an equation on the board.
Is + Iv > Ik = P
They call this The Creation Equation, and it represents what has to be true in order to “create” or to achieve your goal. I find this to be true time and time again – you’ll love it. And you’ll learn a little Sanskrit! Intensity of Your Energy The Is is the Intensity of Shakti. Shakti is the energy behind our intention. It’s the intensity with which we are determined to get to the goal. Now, I talk with entrepreneurs all day long. Our language reveals the intensity of our commitment. “I’m thinking that I would love to make six figures someday” has a much different vibration than, “When I’m making six figures I’ll be making a much bigger impact, and I’ll take that trip I used to only dream about.” There’s a greater level of determination or energy behind the second statement. Intensity of Your Action The Iv is the Intensity of Vayu. Vayu is the energy of action. We can have all the intention in the world, but if we don’t actually take action nothing gets done. Many people focus so much on energy they forget to leave the house! So, with the example above about making six figures, even the person who has a higher energy behind their intention will need to do something toward their goal. Maybe they book their trip and then they book a speaking engagement or joint venture call to sell an offering that will fund their trip. Intensity of Resistance The Ik represents the Intensity of Karma. In this definition Karma means the energy of resistance, either internal or external. Internal resistance is consistent with the energy I call “hidden commitments.” It’s when the fear of something that is entirely about us keeps us from moving forward. (They call these “samskaras” – all the little imprints of past experiences that shape the way we judge the world.) These pieces of inner resistance create a barrier toward our goal. For example if you decided at some point early in life that people who make a lot of money are bad, you would have a certain intensity of karma around that. External resistance is a circumstance that exists in the external world that creates barrier to our goal. Let’s say you want to make 6-figures and there is a class that your gut says will help you to make 6-figures, but it costs money that you don’t currently possess. (I’ve been there, and I hear this a lot!) The Goal The P is the Prapti which represents the achievement of the goal. The Equation So if we look at the full equation: It is saying that the intensity of the energy behind your intention + the intensity of your action must be greater than the intensity of your resistance in order to reach your goal. So here’s the cool news about that. There are AT LEAST 3 ways to reach any goal!
- Increase the intensity of energy behind your intention. Spend some time looking at why you really want the thing. Get present to the difference it will make. Envision yourself reaching the thing. Play out the ripple effect of having the thing.
- Increase your action. Even if you’re not certain of the exact right action, taking action will get you a result that will help guide your next action. You can take ineffective action of course, but no action will require you really work on the other levers!
- Decrease the intensity of your resistance. This can be an inside job, like working with a coach on rewiring that old programming that is keeping you in judgment rather than owning what is. When we reduce our inner resistance we require less action or intensity to make something happen.
Coaching works on all three of these levers, and effective coaching will guide you to the lever that will have the biggest impact, or will pull with the greatest ease, to help you achieve your goal! Yoga Nidra may do this as well, potentially with less active “work.” As of this writing, I’m not yet a convert. Using conscious awareness to shift the subconscious patterns still works for me! But as I said, I’ll keep you posted. Worst case, we can all use a little more “non-doing” in our lives! I mentioned this quote in my newsletter note and I’ll share it again, from my retreat notes: “Everything we DO builds up our self-image of who we know ourselves to be. When we rest, we are not building it up, and we give space to let our self-image break down.” Freedom, anyone?