Ahimsa

In yoga, we've started to delve into the Yamas beginning with Ahimsa. Basically it's non-violence. And this includes no self-violence. No, I'm not a cutter nor am I physically mean in any other way (unless you count the things that Jillian Michaels makes me do...) but I am very guilty of self-deprecation. And so through the study of Ahimsa, I'm trying to live the life and be more loving of me.

I was in a discussion recently about signs. I believe in signs, I see little ones all the time. For example, my lucky number is eight. Basically, my birth date, time, and weight are all eights. Really. So I took that as a sign and eight's been my number, forever.

In the previously mentioned discussion there was a talk about 11. A person had many occurrences with eleven. So 11 became their sign. But it doesn't always have to be numbers. Sometimes when things don't go right--trying to make something turn out just so to only to have that certain something no longer needed. Sigh.

There's even the off-chance that I'll take extra work home in the midst of winter and voila, a snow day the next morning. It's like the universe is sending you little signs. It's her way of showing she cares.

So this morning, as I was working on the no self-deprecation, I was consciously thinking nice thoughts about myself ("My butt looks fine." "Those hairs that stick up on my head are probably overshadowing the 3 1/2 inches I got cut off last night." And so on.). And as I was in the main office of my work I was sitting in the chair, known as the therapy chair. It was there in the therapy chair I saw my first Ahimsa sign.

On the front desk of my friend and co-worker sits an apple-clothes pin contraption that holds the out-going mail upright. And as is very common in an elementary school setting, there was a Scholastic Books envelope waiting to be shipped off to the land of not-so-cheap books. Sitting next to the mail holder is a cup of pens. Where am I going with this whole Ahimsa-signs-of-the-universe thing?

Well, the exact position of the cup of pens combined with how I normally sit in the therapy chair--pushing myself to think kind things--partially blocked the view of the Scholastic envelope. The envelope that always has the same saying on the back, "Thanks for your buying our books at really unreasonable price..." oh wait, it doesn't say that. And it doesn't really matter. Except the first part. Today, the envelope, or the universe, said "Thanks for you."