Being clean and clear with your words: welcome to Part 2 of our exploration of the Eight-Limbed Path of Yoga  

 The journey to date 

If you’ve been on the journey of this latest resource series, you’ll know that we’re bringing the holistic practice of yoga into the Mindful Creativity mix. The eight-limbed path of yoga encompasses more than just the physical side of yoga.  Both practices; Mindful Creativity and the 8-Limbed Path, ask us to be clear, honest, intentional and act with integrity in every way. And the benefits of this are a feeling of peace, alignment, and gaining access to a deeper and more profound way of living. 

The first resource in this series focuses on exploring the ideas of balance and equilibrium. Read my blog post on Choosing Equilibrium and download my free workbook to help you explore it. We’re now into the second resource in the series, which explores the practice of Niyama, with a focus on being clean with our language, our words and the intent behind our dialogue and conversations with others. 

What is Mindful Creativity?

Hello, my name’s Jordan. Mindful Creativity is a great way to relax, unwind and enjoy creativity to enhance our sense of wellness. If you’re looking for a way to connect with your inner voice as you develop your own personal creative practice, it might be just the thing for you.

My Mindful Creativity blog, resources and tools provides ways for you to deepen into a more nourishing creative practice! 

A bit more about the 8-limbed path of yoga 

‘In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, the eightfold path is called ashtanga, which literally means “eight limbs” (ashta=eight, anga=limb). These eight steps, commonly known as the 8 limbs of yoga, basically act as guidelines on how to live a meaningful and purposeful life. They serve as a prescription for moral and ethical conduct and self-discipline; they direct attention toward one’s health; and they help us to acknowledge the spiritual aspects of our nature.’ (Get to know the 8 Limbs of Yoga, Yoga Journal). 

A look at the Niyamas 

Niyama is the second of the eight-limbed path of yoga. It refers to positive internal duties or observances. The prefix ‘ni’ is a Sanskrit verb which means ‘inward’ or ‘within’. There are five Niyamas: saucha (cleanliness), santosha (contentment), tapas (discipline or burning desire or conversely, burning of desire), svadhyaya (self-study or self-reflection, and study of spiritual texts), and isvarapranidaha (surrender to a higher power). 

I’ve chosen the first saucha, or cleanliness, for our focus. There are lots of ways to mindfully explore the practice of cleanliness, of course. These include maintaining clean creative and personal spaces, clean eating, clean living more broadly. But in this exploration of saucha, I particularly want to focus on the practice of being clean and clear with our words.  

Starting with the opposite – let’s look at obsfucation 

Do you know what it means when people obfuscate? Obsfucation is the art of using words to confuse people, to divert people from the real facts, by making things unclear, confusing; by beating around the push, using complex or floral language to hide important information. It can also be described by creating verbal noise, or overwhelming people with information and signals, to make the real message indistinguishable from the useless data. There are a lot of articles, stories, descriptions and discussions online about the devious science of this language tactic. It’s got a deep, long history on many layers of being used for political, military, social purposes over time. 

But what’s this got to do with creative practice, and why you might be reading this in the first place? Well, by starting with the opposite of our desired state, we can pivot and turn ourselves in the right direction. The opposite of obfuscation is bringing clarity and integrity to our words and how we engage with others. Exploring how we, as creative people, can be clean, clear and intentional with our words, is a great way to deepen into our mindful creativity practice. 

The power of intent 

In previous Mindful Creativity series, we’ve explored creative visualisation and mindful storytelling. Think affirmations, positive self-talk, and creative visualisation techniques. They help us to increase our awareness of our internal dialogue and our self-talk. In this new practice, we are exploring how to build on the practice of saucha from the inside out. Once we have created this positive, life affirming and generous landscape inside of ourselves, we can begin to invite others into conversations filled with imagination, positivity, generosity and opportunity. 

Using the practice of saucha, how can you engage differently with people, with a focus on being clean and clear with your words? 

I’d like to offer up two ways to be clean and clear with your words and intentions when engaging with the people around you. If you have other suggestions that you want to recommend, feel free to add them at the bottom of this post! The more wisdom, the better.

 1. Say what you mean and mean what you say. If you find yourself beating around the bush, use the practice of saucha to consider why. 

Don’t beat around the bush – or, if you do, be aware that you are choosing to do so.  You may be doing it as a matter of habit, or to avoid confrontation, or because you are worried about how your words will land.  

Beating around the bush is a time-honoured classic, has many ties to culture and what is considered polite; and and more prevalent in some countries than others. My experience is that even with the small distance between Australia and New Zealand, and with the constant and ongoing cultural exchange, melding, and sharing, there are distinct differences in this area. In my first year working in Wellington, I was frequently reminded of how alive and well the practice of beating around the bush was. 

Beating around the bush isn’t a crime, but the practice of saucha gives you the opportunity to consider, or to return to, or ponder, on the intent of your message. If you are feeling hesitant, worried, or you feel like you’re trying to avoid getting to the punch, then maybe you need to do some more reflection.  

Remember, when we are communicating, there is always a message. If you’re beating around the bush, maybe the message isn’t ready. Lack of clarity is one of the things that can impede our message being received. So, think about why you may be trying to say something in the most convoluted way possible. There’s a better way – but it will require you to be really clear on your intentions. And that is often where the work lies. 

Tend to your garden. Create a hygienic, healthy and light-filled language ecosystem. 

Communication being about clarity means that sometimes, in fact often, less can be more. Take the time to understand the ecosystem of communication you find yourself in.  

Consider your communications with others to be a garden. Imagine you’re exploring this garden for the first time, looking to better understand the environment. You might find that the best thing to do is start pruning, clearing seasonal debris, looking to remove weeds, and do a nice tidy-up in general. It’s often true that cleaning up is a positive way to centre ourselves, find our way and get our bearings – simply by reducing clutter and garbage, we can find clarity. In this instance, the practice of saucha can also mean time taking to listen – to understand your audience. Then, listen some more. Listen until the environment you find yourself feels peaceful. 

To me, this is a lovely way to integrate mindful creativity and the practice of yoga – we are holistically placing our body into the environment and using it as a powerful tool to support our work. A saucha-informed listening practice means that we can use our entire body to sense and feel into a communication ecosystem. This could be your workplace, a community environment, social space, or a friendship group. It could be taking the measure, or the vibe of the dynamics between people.  

I invite you to really use your body to help with this. Our subtle energies – another thing we explore in yoga and through understanding the chakras, in alignment with our sensory and observational skills, can really help to sense how and where to add value to a conversation – and where to conserve energy by staying away from ‘junk’ conversations. Junk conversations, which I would alike to garbage or debri, are conversations that have a low energy – they don’t contribute positively to anything. Bitching, gossip, complaining and negative talk all fall into this space. Just leave it alone and save your talk for better energy. 

Instead, look for opportunities to tend to the flowers and plants that are healthy, vital and growing. Contribute your talk, your energy, your expression to areas of opportunity, growth, possibility, fun, adventure. When it comes to clean talking, the practice of saucha might lead you to explore ways to choose words that create opportunity, explaining things with optimism and hope, or allowing your whole body to resonate with positive intent.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you have to avoid life’s challenges and frustrations. But, using saucha practices might enable you to get to the heart of things. If something is frustrating you, why? What intention do you want to set in terms of moving through it? What can you bring to the table in terms of ideas and solutions? If you can set your intentions by being mindful, quiet and clear in your own mind, then the right words will follow. The hard work will be done, and you can engage in a clean, clear, powerful and authentic way with those around you. You get to live, breathe and talk in a way that is truly aligned with your intentions and your vision for the life you want to live. 

Ready to give it a go? I bet you are.

 Sources and further reading:

 https://www.ekhartyoga.com/articles/philosophy/the-niyamas-bringing-saucha-into-your-life 

https://www.ekhartyoga.com/articles/philosophy/the-8-limbs-of-yoga-explained 

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