Happy new year, 2022!

We have crossed into the new year, and I am writing this on January 1, 2022. I had big plans for the last 2 weeks of 2021. I bought 7 books online in early December and awaited them like a child. I cleared my calendar, for the last 2 weeks of December to read my new books. Reading weeks, I called it. How many books did I read? NONE! (I finally started reading one this morning).

I had big hopes of reading at least 3 books but catching up with friends, family, cleaning the house, and preparing for a small family and friends Christmas lunch, then the recovery, all took away my reading time. Am I upset? A little but all these other things I did instead I would not trade for reading. They were/are equally important, to me.

Though I was a little disappointed the greater emotion I felt was guilt. Guilt for not being able to execute my original plan and the resulting intermittent mental tug of wars, a type of self-punishment. The what-ifs, should, could, would haves. What Timothy Gallwey calls the inner game, the game between Self 1 and Self 2. The ‘I’ and ‘myself’ respectively as Gallwey describes.

We all talk to ourselves. We have conversations in our head and Gallwey breaks this down beautifully. When we talk to ourselves, there are 2 selves – the ‘I’, the teller self, and ‘myself’, the doer self. According to him, the magic of conquering the inner game, which he relates to tennis, but applies to any situation, is to improve the relationship between the conscious teller, Self 1, and the natural capabilities of the doer, Self 2. The aim is to quieten Self 1 and trust Self 2!

In my case, I had organised a reading list, a social calendar for 2 weeks and planned everything. Self 1 made the plan and was in charge but self 2 wanted to go with the flow of the season! Lucky this tug of war was easily solved in my case as my body could only cope with so much. The physical and emotional energy expended in meeting up with family and friends, cooking and cleaning dictated how much reading I could do. And lucky, Self 1 humbly gave in.

But this inner game matters. It can make all the difference. Because it affects our outer game. If our inner game has a grip on us, typically through fear, fear (or any other emotion that does not serve us) can negatively compound the relationship between Self 1 and Self 2. This is not helpful.

I focus on fear today because it came up in a few of my conversations over the 2 weeks. They showed up in the following ways:

• Fear of the unknown/future

• Fear of what other people may think or say

• Fear of Covid

Unfortunately, fear has one main objective, to hold us back. And here is my take on the 3 fears:

• If we are honest with ourselves, everything is unknown. Only the present, this moment, is known. Which makes fearing the unknown or trying to plan for every eventuality, futile. And yet we all do it. Perhaps for this new year, we can all take ONE step to befriend our unknown to reduce its grip on us. And see where it takes us?

• Others will always have opinions of us, usually a view or judgement not necessarily based on fact or knowledge. But we can’t not do what we want to do based on what others may say. I must quote Deanne Duncombe who elegantly articulated the following. ‘Opinions cannot be right or wrong and because they can’t be right or wrong, they can only affect us if we give them the authority to do so. I don’t think this means we should ignore all opinions we don’t like. However, it does mean that we get to choose how we use them. Opinions tell us more about the speaker of the opinion than they do the object of the opinion. We can choose how we use opinions, including our own opinions of ourselves and others!’

• This may sound flippant of me, but we may have to make peace with Covid soon. By peace I mean get the virus. Our forefathers (and mothers) endured more and yet here we all are. Question is, to what extent will it impact us and that depends on who we are and how we predict our future.

As you start your 2022 journey, here are 3 questions for you:

1. Where are you holding yourself back presently?

2. What would you do if you didn’t have that fear?

3. What small action can you take, today, to mitigate this fear?

Welcome to 2022, I wish you the courage to outstare your fear.

As always, you can reach me at yoga@yoganesadurai.com