Yoga To Change Your Thinking

Hooked on a negative thought? Find out how yoga can help break unsupportive thought patterns, reroute mental circuits and change the way you think.

- Rachael Coopes

Sometimes in life you can feel a little stuck. Things simply aren’t flowing: it feels like you’re not making progress with your career, your love life has been on standstill for a year (or 10) or the money tap feels like it’s eternally turned off no matter how hard you work.

Note the word “feels”. Sure, there may be very real reasons for why you feel like that but, fundamentally, the perception of being stuck or trapped may be greater than the reality. You mind gets “fixed” then your actions follow suit. Or, you get paralysed and can’t take action at all.

What you really need to do is see things in a different way, to turn your thoughts around or even upside-down.

In Yoga Sutra 1.2, Yogas chitta vritti nirodha, Patanjali introduces the concept of feeling stuck and how it originates in the mind. Sitting on the clear, open channel of your mind (pure consciousness), says Patanjali, are whirlings or vrittis. These vrittis are the endless thoughts you have. The root vrt (to turn) implies there is a rotational quality to these thoughts. They go around and around until they are stuck on a loop, preventing you from seeing clearly and keeping an open mind.

The true nature of the mind is to be completely open but your thoughts run in circles, chasing their tails, until the mind gets stuck in a closed circuit. This results in anxiety, obsessive thoughts and getting fixed in your thinking.

In order to change the way you think, you need to break the circuit. Pranayama practices can be a very powerful tool for changing the way you think. They can be as simple as taking three deep, slow, conscious breaths. This is especially useful when you are hooked on a thought that’s causing you pain and provides a quick fix.