What can I learn from the people around me?

Day 5: When transgressions hinder, the weight of the imagination should be thrown on the other side.--The Yoga Sutras

We all have patterns in our lives. Some patterns result in wonderful, positive behavior...some patterns are not so positive. In fact, they are self-destructive in some way--however small.

So how do we change this behavior? How do we halt the patterns that lead to it?

By focusing on positive behaviors.

This is a light-bulb over my head. In practicing ahimsa (non-harming) for example, we can not merely resist falling into delf-destructive patterns. If we do this, we merely focus on those negative behaviors. Instead, we must turn away from those bad behaviors to focus on the positive ones.

"The Yoga Sutras suggest that we deliberately turn away from
the choice for death and embrace the choice for life."

I find that one of my negative behaviors is to be a "know it all." It is a pattern that I would like to break. That's for sure. I hear words coming out of my mouth in conversation, and it is as if I am hearing myself as a third-person, and I think "listen to that know-it-all! How annoying." And no matter how much I try to break myself of that behavior, it always creeps back in...

In reading this passage this morning, I realize that the best way to break myself of this behavior is not to try to restrain myself from giving my opinion to everything--to restrain from trying to be the authority on all things. I've tried. It never seems to work because before I know it, I have fallen into those patterns again.

After reading this passage, I realize that instead of merely biting my tongue to "restrain" from this negative behavior, I should instead "turn my imagination to the other side" and ask myself "what can I learn from others?"

I will place this phrase on a post-it and put it in my datebook, and on my computer at work.

What can I learn from the people around me?....Even asking that question now makes me more curious about what lays ahead for me today and puts a smile on my face.