Happiness is Temporary. Contentment is a Better Goal
Yamas and Niyamas, part 7: Santosha/ Contentment
Welcome to part 7 of the 10 part exploration of the Yamas and Niyamas, the first 2 limbs of yoga! These posts come out every Tuesday. If you missed any of the previous posts, scroll to the bottom to catch up, the links are all there.
Most people want to be happy in life, but happiness is fleeting, like any emotion. You can be happy for a little while, but like sadness, grief, anger, fear, usually it ebbs and flows. As the saying goes, this too shall pass.
Santosha, or Contentment, is more steady and consistent. You can feel content and satisfied with yourself and your life on a grander scale and for a prolonged period of time. Contentment can exist regardless of what emotions are popping up. It’s like a bass line in a song, always there, steady and stable, regardless of what the guitar is doing.
You can feel content with your life and still be sad about something specific; it’s hard to feel happy and sad at the same time. I suppose it’s possible, but that seems like a lot of work to hold both emotions at once. It’s a lot of work to hold any emotion for long periods of time. That’s why grudges weigh on you over time, and grief, when not released and expressed, can affect your health (those are posts for another day).
If your goal in life is to find contentment, rather than happiness, it’s a more sustainable, and less exhausting goal. That’s what the ancient yogis prescribed, and I think there is value to this mindset.
But how do you find contentment? There are always things going wrong: bills to pay, people getting hurt or sick, maybe dying, the country becoming more and more divided, wars breaking out constantly, the environment falling apart, etc. How can you be content amidst all of that?
What you focus on grows
Have you ever noticed that when you are interested in something, you suddenly see it everywhere? You want to buy a new car, and suddenly that car is all over the road. You want to buy a house, and you start to see “For Sale” signs everywhere. The cars and signs were there before, the difference is now you notice them.
When practicing Santosha, or Contentment, you need to see things in your life that feed that contentment. I find that practicing Gratitude is a great place to start. Just like the cars and signs, when you focus on things in your life for which you are grateful, you start to notice more things that deserve your gratitude.
You become grateful for your loved ones, your health, your cup of tea in the morning. You become grateful for beautiful sunny days, or the sound of rain on the roof when you are warm and dry inside. Gratitude starts to soak into your consciousness until you notice that you feel content with what you have.
Complaining focuses your attention on everything that’s going wrong in your life, but usually doesn’t fix anything. I find that people who complain rarely make anything better. Noticing what is wrong and doing something about it is different than complaining. Acknowledge things in your life that you’d like to change, then change them. If you can’t change anything, complaining won’t help.
Michael Singer said (I’m paraphrasing), “stress is what happens when you resist what is.” Complaining feeds that resistance. I feel like this is the core mindset shift to practicing Santosha. When you can let go of resistance and can agree to what is, all that’s left is contentment. Easier said than done, perhaps, but somewhere to start.
Gratitude is the next step after you’ve let go of the resistance. It focuses your attention on everything that’s good, which brings you satisfaction. Perhaps it will make you happy while you notice. What you focus on grows.
In Practice
Take out a piece of paper or a journal and every day, for a week, write down 3 things that you are grateful for. Each day choose new and different things. When you write them down, pause and feel grateful. It’s not enough just to write it down, allow yourself to feel.
As someone who has lived most of my life in my head avoiding my emotions, it can be easy to bypass the feeling piece, but that’s where the good stuff lives. The more you allow yourself to feel grateful, the less you notice things going wrong. Or the less they bother you.
My one caveat is bypassing the bad for the good. While gratitude does bring you contentment and make you feel more optimistic in your life, not every day will be a good day. Shit happens, accidents, illness, death, losses of all types can come into your life; gratitude doesn’t prevent that. Feel your grief, your sadness, your fear and allow yourself to process the feeling. Then, come back to gratitude to find your center again.
It can be “preferable” to try to talk yourself out of these bad moments by forcing yourself to be grateful. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Be cautious not to suppress your feelings by practicing gratitude. It’s not sustainable. I speak from experience. Feelings have a way of rearing their ugly, beautiful heads, usually when it is least convenient.
Allow yourself to feel, whatever it is. Feelings are temporary, but important information to help you navigate this world of humaning. Contentment can sustain you through it all, like a weighted blanket, giving you the support to make it through.
Previous Posts in the Series:
How to Move Toward Ease in 10 “Simple” Steps
Are Your Thoughts Harmful to Yourself and Others?
The Mind is a Liar. Only Your Gut Tells You the Truth
How We Steal From Ourselves When We Don’t Set Good Boundaries
How Do You Know When You Reach Enough?
Is Non-Attachment the Cure for Anxiety?
Feeling Stuck in Overwhelm? It Might Be Your Environment
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