When I first started teaching yoga, it was hard not to notice that students tend to practice in the same spot every time they come to class. The first time they enter the classroom, they carefully consider their options before putting their mat down. Taking in the room, they measure their surroundings to find the best place to practice. Their next class, they usually drop their mat in the exact same spot. Years later, most students are still practicing in the very same spot as the first time they came to class.
Habits start innocently enough; rarely does it occur to us that even a harmless habit may be affecting our future. Where you place your yoga mat may seem inconsequential, but the fact that you are so faithful to this or to any other habit conveys an important lesson: Your past exerts itself on your present. If you don't consciously choose the direction of your life, like it or not your past will choose it for you.
The implication of this is that if you want a different future -- say, to find the love of your life, a more meaningful career, or to have a more fulfilling spiritual life -- it is vital to consider a core teaching of the yoga tradition, which is: Avoid unconscious action or doing things simply because they are familiar.
There is, in fact, power in learning to let go of even a single habit, a kind of power that can generate real momentum toward achieving either a specific desire or simply more of the life you truly want.
In my book, "The Four Desires: Creating a Life of Purpose, Happiness, Prosperity and Freedom," I detail a simple yet profound process for increasing your capacity to positively shape your future and, more specifically, for achieving your intentions. I developed this process based on the ancient teachings and a simple truth: One way to affect real change is to break a habit -- not necessarily a habit that seems related to the specific change you want to achieve, but simply any habit that you recognize as being unhelpful or counterproductive.
I call the first part of this process, in which you simply refrain from doing a "less-than-constructive" habit, Departure Point. I call it this because the very action of ceasing to engage a particular habit allows you to depart from the momentum that has shaped your life until now. The next step of the process is Seeding the Gap. Applied in conjunction with Departure Point, it refers to "planting" an intention into the mental and physical "space" that opens up each time you avoid indulging in the habit you have chosen to give up.
The Departure Point technique is based on the principle that by giving something up, you create space and, as I have said, you separate yourself from the momentum of your past. In the process, you create the possibility to see, think and act differently, and to attract new opportunities.
Here's why: Each time you pause and choose not to indulge habituated behavior you enter into clear space, a "gap" which is, by definition, free from the distortion of your unconscious. The instant you do this you create an opportunity to link to sacred and sublime intelligence. Experiencing this, if only for an instant, connects you to boundlessness, a place free from the doubts, contrary beliefs, and/or misapprehensions that oftentimes obstruct you from taking greater control of your life and even achieving your goals.
This point is essential. From a yogic perspective, stillness, coupled with expanded awareness, is by far the most powerful medium by which you can affect your destiny. From the perspective of the ancient traditions stillness is a far more compelling force to influence and attract, and thereby help you fulfill your desires, than is desperation or even willpower alone.
Break free of old patterns enough times and you will create a new and different future. This may sound too simple to be life-changing, but I've seen people accomplish incredible things, achieve profound changes in their life, simply by letting go of a habit and placing new, positive, life-affirming intentions into the space once occupied by their habit.
The following is the six-step process I developed for creating a Departure Point and Seeding the Gap
Step 1: Choosing A Habit to Give Up: Your Departure Point
The habit you are going to give up needs to be one that you deem non-constructive and that you are prepared to let go. It also needs to be something you do on a regular basis, perhaps once or several times per day or at least that you think about doing several times a day.
It's important to know that giving it up is doable and that you're willing to give it up. Giving up a habit that is deeply engrained and has a powerful sway over you will give you maximum leverage if you succeed -- but if it's too hard, you may fail to give it up.
You know best which habit will be the most effective for you to give up. Examples of habits that students have successfully given up include sugar consumption, excessive internet use, fingernail biting, gossiping, high-fat foods, coffee, pornography, wine, shopping sprees, listening to talk radio, "salty snacks" and watching too much television.
Step 2: Using Your Departure Point to Seed the Gap
After you have decided which habit you are going to give up as your Departure Point, here's how the Seeding the Gap method works.
1. At some point in the day, you will have an impulse to engage in your habit.
2. Rather than satisfy the impulse, stop.
3. At this instant, turn your attention away from your impulse to engage in the habit and toward to a higher source: either an inner source of peace and calm, an infinite intelligence outside of you, or, if you prefer, God, nature, or even a remembrance of the love and support of people to whom you are closest.
4. For an instant, rest in this experience. Relax. Surrender into it. Be nowhere other than right there.
5. Now, mindful of that experience of a higher source, remember your resolve or goal -- think and with full feeling invoke the sense of a new and better future. Have the certainty and confidence that this intention has already been fulfilled.
6. Give thanks.
This is the entire process of Seeding the Gap. Its six steps should take you less than a minute and can be done any time, any place; no one ever has to know you're doing it. Simply repeat the steps each time you find yourself thinking about or craving the habit you've chosen to give up. It is ideal to do this a minimum of once or twice each day, more often if the impulse toward your habit comes up more often.
Granted, giving up a habit is not necessarily easy, but the fact that you may feel some resistance to stopping it is also a signal that there is untold power in sacrificing your habit for the sake of something better, something you really, really want. As simple as it may sound, the technique of Seeding the Gap makes you increasingly capable of achieving your goals and shaping your destiny by one, helping you break free from the negative pull of your past two, enabling you to more effectively engage the power of resolve and three, by providing you with leverage to regularly remember and to connect to your source -- a refuge of boundless power, possibility, and Grace.
Excerpt adapted from The Four Desires by Rod Stryker. Copyright © 2011 by Rod Stryker. Excerpted by permission of Delacorte Press, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.