Santosha: Live With More Contentment
Photo by Micael Sáez on Unsplash
“True Contentment is not having everything, but in being satisfied with everything you have.” —Oscar Wilde
How often have you found yourself saying: “Once I earn this money/lose this weight/get married, I will be happy?” You can probably fill in the blank.
The real question is how to find contentment right now in the middle of all of life’s ups and downs?
Contentment is defined as a feeling of happiness or satisfaction. Santosha translated as “contentment,” is the second of the five Niyamas, which are the disciplinary guidelines and proper attitudes for personal practice.
Practicing Santosha doesn’t require doing anything but rather accepting and appreciating what you do have instead of yearning for what you are missing.
True contentment is independent of external conditions. If you rely on things that are external to you to bring you freedom and happiness, you are bound for discontent because those conditions are always subject to change.
Santosha is not the easiest Niyama to practice. It requires you to work toward a state of equanimity or balance and calm amidst the changing nature of life. Beyond balance, Santosha asks you to be happy, satisfied, and grateful amid the vicissitudes of life.
To come closer to finding peace, Santosha is undeniably one of the most important practices to come back to consistently.
Santosha Makes You More Resilient
“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” —Jon Kabat-Zinnk
Think of Santosha as a way to surf the waves. Santosha is not pretending that everything is OK. It's acknowledging that things might suck right now, but you’re still ok.
Santosha asks you not only to bring attention to what is happening but to reframe and reinterpret your situation. It involves seeing things more objectively and with more compassion towards yourself and others.
Santosha requires a willingness to be in your experience as it is. It’s not discouraging you to achieve your goals or strive for more. Santosha is asking you to be content or at ease with the way things are at this moment.
There is a saying, “You are perfect exactly as you are, but there is always room for improvement.” Santosha is the way to finding peace, a sense of stability, and calm.
Using phrases such as, “Things are as they are. May I accept things just as they are” and “May I accept myself just as I am.” can help bring you to your presence.
Santosha is a way of reappraising the situation and cultivating resilience. It's as if you are saying to the storm, “Hit me with your best shot, because inside, I got what it takes to handle the wind and rain. Plus, I can’t wait to appreciate the calm and sunshine when it comes.”
Santosha takes courage and leads to resilience.
Happiness Is Different from Contentment
Patanjali states in Sutra 2.42, “saṁtoṣāt-anuttamas-sukhalābhaḥ” (From contentment, the highest happiness is attained). Happiness is not synonymous with contentment. It is from contentment, that supreme happiness comes.
You can feel happy once a desire or expectation that you have comes to fruition. This might be something material or status-related, but it is short-lived. You will always desire something more.
In order to have lasting happiness, you must practice Santosha or contentment. Happiness comes from within, and it requires a practice of non-attachment to desires.
Having wants and desires is not a problem at all. It is the attachment to getting them that leads to unhappiness.
To practice, Santosha, is to also practice letting go of our attachment to the way we think things should be or what we should have. Searching outside ourselves for happiness, be it in possessions or people or substances, will only lead to more searching.
The Bhagavad Gita also teaches you not to look outside of yourself for happiness. In verse 2.70-71, the text states, “The man whom desires enter as rivers flow into the sea, filled yet always unmoving—that man finds peace. Abandoning all desires, active without craving, free from all thoughts of “I” and “mine, “that man finds utter peace.”
In effect, you must cultivate a mind that accepts that everything is subject to change. The weather changes. Seasons change. Your body, mind, emotions, and desires are all subject to change.
Who you are underneath is unchanging, therefore happiness is already inside you. You must only uncover it.
Yoga class is not a competition to see who can do each pose the best. (Photo by LOGAN WEAVER | @LGNWVR on Unsplash)
Practicing Santosha on the Mat
“Comparison is the thief of joy.”—Theodore Roosevelt
How often in a yoga class when you are working on a posture, do you look around to see how others are doing the pose? Are you doing “better” than someone else or vice versa?
Comparison can only lead to discontent. Yoga is not competitive and, more importantly, not comparative.
It is challenging to find contentment while holding a chair pose. Your thighs might be burning, and your arms get fatigued. Perhaps, staying in pigeon pose for an extended period of time makes you want to scream.
Yet, you can choose to breathe, soften, and relax into the sensation. Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean you can’t find a sense of contentment. It brings you into the present with your experience as it is, be it demanding or not.
Moreover, once you can do one pose, there will always be further to go. There will always be more to explore in your practice. You must remember that there is no end in mind and nothing to get.
As it is so often stated, “It is all about the journey, not the outcome.” We use the word “practice” because it is never-ending. With continuous practice, you can learn to accept yourself exactly where you are.
When you push to do a pose that you are not yet ready for because your ego wants it, you are bound for injury. Working from attachment and constant forcing will only move you in the opposite direction of satisfaction. Instead, you must appreciate yourself for what you can do and how far you have come in your practice.
Yoga poses that we do repeatedly offer us the ability to see the changing nature of the body. Regular practice teaches the impermanent nature of the body and mind.
Each day the experience is different. If you expect it to be the same or a particular way, you are bound for frustration. Instead, each time you come to the mat, it becomes fertile ground to be present with the way things are.
It is the place to be content with the suchness of life.
Santosha and Mindfulness
Mindfulness is paying attention to what is happening in the present moment, in the mind, body, and external environment. However, it's done with an attitude of kindness and curiosity. More importantly, you do it with a willingness to be with what is.
Mindfulness can be practiced formally on the meditation cushion by returning the attention to the breath or a sound over and over again. It can be done on the yoga mat, walking, in any activity, or throughout the day.
With time you start to observe the habits of the mind. The practice trains you to notice the moment-to-moment arising and passing away of everything. It moves you away from attachment, clinging, and striving.
Instead, mindfulness reorients the mind toward care and loving-kindness. It trains you in kindness toward yourself and others.
Instead of reaching towards something you think you are supposed to be, you can learn to be the best YOU right now - content with all you have right now. This is Santosha.
The space you create with mindfulness reminds you to look for the good. This is important because the mind will always go toward the negative.
We are wired with a negativity bias so quickly we forget the positive. It can take only an unkind remark or bad traffic to ruin a mood.
It’s easy to quickly forget the good in your life. How often do you take for granted a well-functioning mind and body? Or your car? Your oven or refrigerator?
It often takes something going wrong to appreciate when it’s going right. Mindfulness helps you to remember to be grateful for what is working well.
Practicing any of the Yamas & Niyamas is a great way to work on your Santosha.
Ways to Practice Santosha:
Gratitude: Being grateful supports greater health, well-being, abundance, and wisdom. It opens you up, not only to what is going well but makes you expand your attention so that you can see more goodness around you. Gratitude practice helps you switch the channel from negative thinking and help you appreciate what is here in your life right now.
A) Keep a gratitude journal: Write three things that have gone well in your day and the causes of those things.
B) Write a thank-you note: You can make yourself happier and nurture your relationship with another person by writing a thank-you note.
C) Thank someone face-to-face or mentally: Think about someone who has done something nice for you, and tell them or mentally thank the individual.
Cognitive Reframing: Changing the channel on how you think about a situation can change how you emotionally experience your situation. Your attitude can change just by taking a moment to consider another interpretation of the circumstance. This can loosen the grip of negative feelings.
Equanimity practice: Cultivate a state of even-mindedness, stability, and calm amidst the changing nature of life. Use some phrases like: “Things are as they are,” “I am as I am,” “May I accept things just as they are,” “May I accept myself just as I am,” or “Other people’s happiness and unhappiness depends on their actions and not on my wishes for them.” These phases can help you to be present with the raw truth of all that is happening, the good, the bad, and the ugly. They can bring you into balance.
Self-compassion: This is a form of acceptance. Here you bring in:'
A.) Mindfulness: With mindful awareness, you are not overly identified with the happenings in your life right now.
B) Common humanity: You are not alone. Difficulties are a part of the human experience.
C) Self-Kindness: Meet yourself with warmth rather than harmful self-criticism.
Non-attachment: As Epictetus said, “Wealth consists not in having great possessions but in having few wants.” Non-attachment is not indifference or complacency. Rather, it is an acknowledgment that we cannot control things. Everything is fleeting. You can desire comforts. You just can’t be attached to having them. Non-attachment teaches you not to yearn for what is missing.
Practice any of the Yamas & Niyamas: Stick with it, and your attitude will change. You can cultivate a way of being so that your actions reflect true clarity and compassion. You can’t always be happy, but you can be content by sincerely practicing any of these:
Non-harming/Kindness
Truthfulness
Non-stealing
Moderation
Generosity
Purity
Contentment
Austerity
Self-Study
Surrender.
Cultivate Happiness Within Yourself
In the end, Santosha can help you find peace. Santosha asks you to look at the full part of your glass. It is your attitude that determines how you see your life. It’s only when you feel you have enough inside yourself that you can live fully and give fully.
The practice is a way to cultivate an abundance mindset. There is plenty of everything to go around.
Most importantly, do not wait for happiness. You must remember to stay present and look for the good. You have everything you need right within you, but as Glinda, the good witch, said in The Wizard of Oz, “You had the power all along, my dear. You just had to learn it for yourself.”
If you want help implementing Santosha, I’ll be glad to help you. Feel free to email me: sharyn@truenorthwell.com.