Parvati Magazine February 2014 - Sobriety1 | Page 9

YOGA
birth”. From this perspective, true sobriety exists
only when we are not
“under the influence” of
the world around us. True
sobriety lives through the
eyes of an individual who
can remain untouched
by life’s stresses, traumas,
and struggles.
We are all born with
a sense of purity, untouched, unharmed. We
all breathe, move, cry,
laugh, crawl, walk… If
we are lucky enough, we
are loved, we hear hands
clapping when we succeed, we get treats for
learning new tasks, we
are held without having
to ask. This is the beauty
of childhood, or so we
would hope.
As time passes, we are
often faced with a rude
awakening. We learn
that we can’t always
have our way, that we
can’t please everyone,
that we won’t always
have people clap their
hands and cheer us on
for all that we do. Life as
we knew it had changed.
It is not surprising that so

many of us learn very
quickly that there are
coping strategies, albeit
very unhealthy coping
strategies for the longterm. Nonetheless,
the focus is on getting
through now.
We learn that there are
so many ways to escape
our reality, be it through
the traditional substances
like alcohol, drugs and
painkillers, or through
dissociation, anger outbursts, sex, food, etc. We
feel damaged, as we
can never return to the
natural state of purity we
were once born with.
We feel saddened by
the harsh nature of the
world. We feel poisoned
by our inability to cope
with life’s challenges. We
feel sensitive, vulnerable,
overwhelmed.
How is it possible, then,
to return to that natural
state of being, after experiencing the imperfections of our world?
We step onto our mats.
We attempt to come into
our own. We allow ourselves to laugh, to cry, to

see the world through sober eyes – eyes that are
not influenced by hurt,
anger or fear. A difficult
task, of course, but it is a
work in progress, and we
are accepting of that.
What would the world
look like if we could walk
through it with the sobriety of a newborn child?
We might be able to see
ourselves for who we are:
vulnerable, sensitive and
beautiful.
We might be able to see
others for who they are:
vulnerable, sensitive and
beautiful.
As a result, we live, we
breathe, we practice
yoga, in our efforts to
regain that feeling, that )