Where your attention goes, your energy flows: Lessons from the second yoga sutra
Where your attention goes, your energy flows. It’s a simple idea, but one I keep coming back to because I think it has so much power. Where our mind goes, where our thoughts go, and what we continually focus on can feel either nourishing or depleting. And when we begin to pay attention to our attention, we start to notice just how much influence it has on our inner experience.
Take a moment right now to pause and notice where your mind is. What has your attention? And how does that focused attention feel in your body? What is it doing to your breath, your heart rate, or your nervous system? Does it feel nourishing or depleting?
The second Yoga Sutra, yogaś citta vr̥tti niṛodhaḥ, is often translated as yoga being the calming or stilling of the fluctuations of the mind. Our minds are constantly moving, thinking, planning, remembering, worrying, analyzing, and jumping from one thing to the next. Yoga gives us an opportunity to practice coming back. Every time we step onto our mat, we have the chance to pay attention, to be present, and to reconnect with our body and breath.
Our body and breath are always in the present moment. They don’t jump ahead to what might happen tomorrow or replay what happened yesterday. It’s our mind that tends to wander. Through asana, pranayama, concentration, meditation, and even the moments of stillness between poses, we can practice gathering our attention and bringing it back to where we actually are. We learn to notice the fluctuations of the mind without having to follow every single one of them.
The goal isn’t to stay on our mat forever (as much as I sometimes wish a great yoga practice would never end!). The real practice is what happens when we take that awareness with us into the rest of our lives. When the world gets loud and busy and everything seems to be asking for our attention, we can begin to recognize when our energy is being scattered. We can notice what is depleting us, what is nourishing us, and where we may be giving our attention without consciously choosing to.
This isn’t about using yoga or mindfulness to shut out the rest of the world, turning away from difficult things, bypassing how we feel or what's happening around us. In fact, I think it’s the opposite. The practice gives us a place to build strength, resilience, patience, and steadiness so that we can meet life more fully. We take a moment to come back to ourselves, fill our own cup, and then return to whatever is waiting for us with a little more capacity.
Yogaś citta vr̥tti niṛodhaḥ: where can you begin?
Create small pauses throughout your day to calm your own fluctuations of the mind. They don’t need to be long, and they don’t need to look like a formal meditation.
Pause before you move on to the next thing - notice where your attention is.
Put your phone and other technology away.
Pay attention to energy leaks - habits, behaviors, unresolved emotions, or relationship dynamics that quietly drains your vital life force.
Close your eyes for a few breaths. Come back to your physical body.
With awareness comes choice.
I like to think of the word intention here - being intentional with our attention and energy. When we become more intentional about where we place our attention, we become more intentional about how we show up in our own lives and in the world around us. Yoga gives us the opportunity to practice this again and again: to notice the mind, to come back to the present moment, and to cultivate a little more steadiness within ourselves. From that place, we can step back into the world feeling more grounded, more resilient, and more fully ourselves.
Want more? I’ve got you! Download the Life Audit for more clarity on your purpose and priorities. Receive my Monthly Newsletter, for tidbits of inspiration and reflection. PLUS! If you are a yoga teacher, grab my free Class Planner!
