Niyama - Self-Study / Svadhyaya

Playing with the Niyamas through the lens of Mark Nepo's The Fifth Season

Your Foundational Stories

The role of myth has always been to illuminate what is often hard to perceive, see, or accept. Our stories, whether uplifting, cautionary, or tragic, serve as reminders of our "who we are", our past, our present, and the factors that will (likely) shape our future. These narratives form our personal mythology, where we are the heroine (or goddess). Sharing our stories is crucial >> they reveal the truth of our existence, even if shared only with ourselves. Our stories, and oftentimes, the "secrets we keep" are integral to how we see ourselves, influencing our perspective and actions. These interconnected stories influence one another, and although they may not be linear, they collectively form our story constellation, a 3-D mosaic (and puzzle) of who we are and becoming.

Reflections:

Our stories are the stars of our constellation or pieces to our life puzzle.

• List out the memories of your life - the key memories, situations, moments from your first memory to now. All the traumas, joys, challenges, accomplishments, and celebrations, include key relationships or interactions that shaped your life and perhaps at different times in your life. Don't analyze or judge the list, just list the memories with enough detail that when you review the list you know what you were referring to.

• Then review the list, write the feelings and behaviors you associate with that memory. Perhaps there was an initial feeling (as you review the whole story of the memory) and then the resulting feeling. Sometimes we go into a situation with a certain intent, and it goes topsy turvy. The idea is to identify the thinking/feelings with the behaviors, actions, or choices of the original memory that we can later link to subsequent actions and behaviors.

• Choose one of these memories/stories and recount why it was significant to you, why you think of it as a foundational story. What part of who you are does telling this story bring into view?

• If you have time, write a summary of your story as if telling the story of a Heroine or a Goddess.