09/09/2025
We talk a lot about letting go in yoga, but what does this actually mean practically.
Aparigraha, non-greed or non-attachement is the last of the yamas in Patanjali's Eight limbs of yoga. This yama encourages us to let go, of our possessions, our desires, our need to control outcomes, both on and off the mat.
I'm gonna lay it down for you guys, this for me is probably the hardest, and most challenging aspect of my practice. I hold on to everything. Why? Because I've got that trauma brain. Growing up I never knew what parent I was going to get so to protect myself I held on, mainly to good times, mainly to hope that things would change, I held on in the belief this would contain my grief and pain.
I know what you're thinking, I'm grown up now and I'm aware so can't I just let go ... Well in principle yes, but in reality life isn't that picture perfect is it?
I give people a lot of myself and in turn I attract users and abusers... And you'd think I'd recognise it, smell them a mile off, but again this isn't some Disney s**t, this is reality. So I let them in, they do their work then leave me to pick up the pieces.
But I hold on. Why? Because I don't want to believe that people can be so cold. I want to hold out for them to return to me, to tell me I am enough, and that it wasn't my fault.
A lot of my yoga practice has been focused on letting go, on non-attachement. Because in reality nothing is ever truly mine, everything must change, and sometimes things come to their natural end. Not because I am not worthy (as my trauma brain would like me to believe) but because I can't control the outside world. I can't hold onto the belief that people are always who they say they are, that things and people will always be around.
It's a journey. But I am wholeheartedly here. I will feel every tear that falls, I will hear every scream as my heart breaks. But in the end, the truth is, that heart ache was never mine to hold.
Inhale.
Exhale.
We let that s**t go.
Betty 🙏 💛
