01/28/2026
New beginnings is one of my favorite things, so every year after the busyness of the holiday season, I really look forward to New Year’s Day. It is an incredible opportunity to reset, revisit, restart. One thing I don’t love, is the overflow of emails and marketing campaigns telling you what trends you should ‘jump on’ as soon as the year begins. Therefore, I intentionally waited for all the hoorah of the New Year to dissipate before writing this newsletter. What I didn’t anticipate was that what was meant as a cheerful, start-your-year email, is now filled with so many mixed emotions.
In The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, yoga is described as the control or restrain of the mind-stuff - Yogas citta vrtti nirodhah Sutra 1:2 When we are able to recognize and restrain our thoughts, we are actively practicing yoga. The Sutras says one of the ways we are able to control our thoughts is pramana, or right knowledge.
Right knowledge is our ability to trust that the information we are receiving is truthful. We attain right knowledge through: direct perception (witnessing an object or situation first hand), inference or logic (you see smoke, you know there is a fire) and scriptural testimony (accessing information through trusted sources). Sutra 2:7
When we are gas-lighted into not believing what we are witnessing with our own eyes, when your logic is being challenged by the sources we are supposed to trust and when said sources become untrustworthy our access to right knowledge is compromised. Like looking through a distorted lens, the truth can’t be seen clearly affecting our sense of safety and leading to a disregulated nervous system.
CONTINUED IN COMMENTS