Asteya: Non-stealing

Before yoga, I lived a painful life of endless comparison. This is how I chose my education, my career, my first boyfriend, shoes, purses, clothes, baby toys, everything. If someone else wanted it, then I had to have it. Compared to them, I lacked something that would surely ease the emptiness. I was clueless on how to live my life and make good choices.

Bottom line: I thought I wasn’t enough. I lived this way for three decades. It was exhausting, overwhelming, depressing, and oppressive. I didn’t know how to live my life on purpose. I was certain I had lost something along the way. I blamed others - my father, my mother, my creator. I envied. I gossiped. I stole people’s time by running late. I acted out my emotions and hurt others with my words. I sulked, fought, fled, and froze.

Then I learned that I was letting comparison steal my joy. As a devoted yogi, I hold the yamas and niyamas as worthy guidelines on my journey into beingness. I couldn’t, in conscious awareness, continue stealing from myself and maintain my integrity at the same time. The more I compared myself to others, the emptier, angrier, more bewildered, and resistant I grew.

Now, I do not compare myself to anyone else. I embrace who I am fully, the light and the dark. The journey on the path of truthfulness has definitely been an adventure. You know you’re on an adventure because somewhere along the way you get scared. I know that I am different and that it is this difference that makes me who I am. I also know that I am the same. I was living a lie that told me I was “less than” and “unlovable.” And I believed it for a long time. Until one day I didn’t.

So keep trying. Keep chasing that fear. Once you’re truly established in asteya, you will receive all manner of blessings.

By Zia Estrella; All Rights Reserved @2019