The Yoga Journey: An Exercise in Humility
True humility is not giving away your power to another person’s will. It’s not about making yourself smaller. That is still ego. Humility is self-awareness and boundary work. There is something honest about humility. It is the power of knowing yourself and the confidence to be honest about who you are, what you have gone through, and what you know to be true and real.
I like the word “humility.” I know it can seem sanctimonious to say humility is a virtue. There are connotations to the word that people naturally resist. To be humbled is embarrassing. To be humble is to consider yourself as not that impressive, and it can feel insincere in an ironic and self-deprecating manner. In the spiritual space, it can give negative vibes, not exactly an energetic state to cultivate. When someone wants to humble us or when we do it to ourselves, shrinking ourselves to exist, there is no choice or consent.
Choose to embody humility as a state of gratitude and wonder that you can cultivate for your yoga practice.
You can do this in two ways.
Understand your competitive nature.
I am not competitive by nature. It’s what initially drew me to yoga. We can be together but do our own thing? There is no winning or losing, but tapping into being? Sign me up!
Unfortunately, the competitive urge can sneak in. We compare our practice to what we see in the studio or on social media, and it can be a corrosive force that prevents us from enjoying yoga.
In 2024, I began winding down my social media activity. It was not a conscious decision, but practical reality made it so. I now understand that, in retrospect, I had many unresolved feelings with regard to social media that centred around feeling I should keep up. It’s not that hard. Just post it…
I thought the issue was that I was no longer interested in the subject matter I was posting about, so I posted more about asana.
But the underlying issue was that I was not interested in posting on the feed, for a number of reasons that will be shared in my next blog post.
I was not able to accept my changing relationship with social media. I was uncomfortable with that possibility, because it came with all these self-limiting beliefs that called to question my work ethic, my creativity, and even my love of yoga.
I know now that it was a seed of competition. And I know that in 2024, my fear of being unseen for aligned opportunities was unfounded. In fact, it was one of my busiest years for teaching regular yoga classes and making local connections in Vancouver yoga studios and community centres—my exact teaching goals for my yoga business.
Move from abundance.
Another way to begin to cultivate humility in your yoga practice is to notice what you feel resistant to in your yoga practice.
I often observe that chronically online yoga teachers and students can become obsessed with moral superiority. The pendulum swing from meditation to asana is a tale as old as British colonialism; Swami Vivekananda, in espousing Raja yoga, the 8-limbed path of meditation in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, often dismissed and belittled asana. This plays out on social media where asana practitioners are insecure that they are not wise enough while meditators are insecure that they are not trendy enough!
What are you resisting that you can be at peace with?
I love yoga asana. I am not bored with the practice. The repetition of habit is sacred for me. When we lose connection with humility, we start to look for something we think we don’t already have within ourselves.
If you enjoy your practice, follow that. If you no longer do, let it go. But move from abundance, not from lack. Do not be driven to add, to hoard, to take, to perform. Be driven by connection and how your yoga fills you, expands your capacity to be present.
Yoga asana is my favourite limb of yoga. I love to practice vinyasa, hot hatha, and yin yoga. It makes sense why I continue to teach it. With this awareness comes the other piece of the puzzle, which is that I am open to the other limbs of yoga. I can experience them with grace and patience. I have also delved into yoga philosophy in the Yoga Sutras and experienced and experimented with yoga nidra as a meditation tool.
What do you think? Is humility worth striving for or is it overrated?
Written By: Irene Lo