Yoga as an Act of Giving
When I first considered the title of this post, I thought, ‘Absolutely. Yoga and giving are naturally intertwined. A teacher giving their time and energy to their classes and yogis give themselves time on their mat to breathe and heal. The reciprocal exchange of energies during class, in my experience, is electric and addictive. The yoga practice ultimately allows every being in the room the opportunity to connect, share their light with the world, grow, and heal.
However, when I sat down to write, I discovered the topic was a gigantic iceberg, which I had assumed was simply an ice cube.
I began to define ‘giving’ for myself.
Giving-to offer, bestow, convey, put in the possession of another.
But this felt too perfunctory compared to the implied meaning when connected to the Yoga we know. I dove deeper, defining other attributes of humanity.
Generosity-the willingness to give freely, typically in reference to material things.
Kindness-the quality of being friendly, generous, considerate, and humble, with a focus on connection, diversity, and unconditionally contributing to the well-being of others.
Compassion-an internal experience directed outward or inward, involving sympathy, empathy, and concern, oriented toward healing and alleviating suffering.
Love-theoretically kindness in action.
After delineating these meanings more precisely, the true intent behind ‘yoga as an act of giving,’ began to take shape in a way I had never considered before.
It seems a small point, but I was stuck on the difference between generosity and kindness. After some serious Googling and hair-splitting, I settled upon an imperfect but reasonable stance: a generous person will give and move on. Whereas a kind person will offer time, effort, understanding, and compassion, even at a potential risk.
The next obvious distinction to be made was between kindness and compassion. Compassion is more emotional, even ethereal, while kindness is action-oriented. I would consider compassion as the compass for kindness. Compassion contributes to social well-being and relationships, while self-compassion, aimed at easing self-judgment, contributes to individual well-being.
We all have experienced the dopamine hit when we both offer and receive kindness. Researchers more recently have investigated the psychological benefits of kindness. They have found that performing acts of unconditional kindness reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression.
In one study, participants with symptoms of depression or anxiety were randomly assigned to engage in acts of kindness, social activities, or in a brief therapeutic intervention. While all three reduced these negative symptoms and improved quality of life, the acts of kindness increased social connection and subsequently well-being, greater than the other two.
Offering acts of kindness helps shift a person’s attention on a negative experience, and experience vicarious reward by witnessing the effect of another person’s pleasure.
Kindness can improve happiness and self-esteem while decreasing stress intolerance and reactivity. Interestingly, research has concluded that a giver will quantify the perceived value of their act, the receiver values the warmth and connection of the act. Also, people who receive these kind acts are more inclined to pay it forward, creating a ripple effect, far greater than one might imagine.
The final word was the most interesting, and complex. Love. While there are many different types of love, I focused on love in its purest form. At the intersection of generosity and kindness is where love lives. However, knowing love’s zip code and defining love are different pursuits.
While love encompasses kindness, love is a state of being which distills all positive human qualities. But love reaches a depth I had not previously consciously appreciated. We all love how love feels. We all hate how love feels.
Love elevates the bar kindness has set. Aloft on Love’s Peak, the air may seem thin. But why?
Love demands integrity. Kindness focuses on the alleviation of suffering, which is itself commendable. Love focuses on healing and what is best, rather than desired. Love is the grit in the oyster. The Stones had it right when they sang, ‘You can’t always get what you want...but you get what you need.’
But I must return to the initial prompt, ‘yoga as an act of giving,’ but rewrite it as ‘yoga as an act of love.’ Thinking about the multi-directionality of the yoga experience (giving, receiving, emanating energy,) I considered all the different places from which I have come to the mat or a class. Places involving the entire spectrum of human emotion. But from those places, there has always been a common aim, whether conscious or not. To give when our cups are overflowing, and to fill up, when our cups are half-full.
Which begs the question, which I believe is a universal paradox: why it is easier to offer kindness and love to others, rather than ourselves?
Because we are our own worst critics. When we see ourselves through a loving other’s heart and experience their acceptance and appreciation of all our parts, we can become less critical of ourselves.
This speaks to the adage I find as useful as a popsicle in a Hot Yoga class, ‘you need to love yourself before loving others.’
Believing you need to love yourself and be sufficiently healed (whatever that means,) before engaging with others in a meaningful way, will only slow the healing journey. With this perspective, you deny yourself the relationships which are integral to your overall happiness as a human. Connection heals, isolation wounds.
Love is a spiritual muscle. From various paths, each of our muscles differs in their current capacity, but not their ultimate potential. With others and ourselves, love, like yoga, takes training and practice.
As hot yogis who love an additional challenge, I’ll hold the five-thousand extra chaturanga push-ups if you consider that universal compassion and unconditional love may be the ultimate purpose of our yoga practice. Whether we admit it or not. It does not matter why or how we first are drawn to yoga. It may be the intensity of the physical practice or the paradoxical solitude and community on our mats. Regardless, our drive for purpose leads us to peel back the layers and look for more. That is where intention is found. And with intention, postures become asanas, thank you, Dr. Ruddy.
Yoga is defined as connection. Unity. It begins by harnessing our natural human drive for connection. Whether that connection starts or ends with our physical selves, our spiritual selves, other beings, or a greater being. Yoga weaves these factions seamlessly into the eight limbs of yoga, only one emphasizing the physical postures we know.
Live your yoga. That is your gift to the world, and yourself.
“Even after all this time, the Sun never says to the Earth, you owe me. Look what happens with a love like that. It lights the whole sky.”
~Hafiz
Resources
Cregg, D. 2022. Healing through helping: an experimental investigation of kindness, social activities, and reappraisal as well-being interventions. The Journal of Positive Psychology.
Inagaki, Tristen K. 2016. The Neurobiology of Giving Versus Receiving Support: The Role of Stress-Related and Social Reward–Related Neural Activity. Psychosomatic Medicine.
Kumar, A. 2022. Kindness Can Have Unexpectedly Positive Consequences. Scientific American
Miller, K. 2019. What is Kindness Psychology? Positive Psychology.