#125 Unravelling Signs, Reclaiming Stillness
The Clarity that Comes from Solitude and Sadhana
Yesterday, I did a lot of things just for me.
I taught a Yoga Sutra Study class online in the morning, then canceled the rest of my work-related calls to take the day off for my mental health. I went to my first Muay Thai class. I got really hungry during it, so afterward, I had a big, messy breakfast with coffee. I did a Zoom workout with my trainer. Practiced yin yoga. Completed both of my daily meditations. Had a Bahasa Indonesian class with Sita. Took two walks. And ended the day with what I call “Brain Spa”: counselling, followed by 45 minutes of chanting, and finally yoga nidra with my philosophy teacher in India, Anvita.
It was a day of loving myself, through all the practices I’d recently fallen out of rhythm with.
On Being off Insta (Again)
Now that I’m off Instagram again (almost two weeks!), my brain has more room. More downtime. More space to process. To feel. To think.
At one point yesterday, I caught myself wondering:
Do I look for too many signs and reasons in life? Is that where I get led astray? Do I assign meaning to everything in a way that opens me to being manipulated by others who can create meaning for me? Have I drifted too far into imagination and woo-woo, forgetting that the real truth lives in the body, in a felt sense, in the gut?
This morning, during a Yoga Sutra Study class, I had shared something similar. I said that I believe I went astray in the last few months by reading too many material signs - using external circumstances to make choices in the material world (prakṛti).
Sutra 2.17 says:
draṣṭṛ-dṛśyayoḥ saṃyogo heya-hetuḥ
The cause of suffering is the conjunction of the seer (puruṣa) and the seen (prakṛti).
In other words, we are born entangled: our spirit (puruṣa) mixed up with the material world (prakṛti). The journey of yoga is the journey of disentanglement. When I was looking for signs - from the world, from other people, from symbols - I was getting more lost in prakṛti. And every time we get re-entangled, we lose touch with the soul.
The only signs that matter are the ones that tell me: I’m tangled again.
Time to return.
And even all these questions I ask myself - these are just thoughts. And thoughts aren’t real. They belong to the past, or to a made-up future.
The only truth is what I feel right now.
Presence. Peace. The breath. The body. The moment.
I still believe things happen for a reason, because Patanjali teaches that, too.
Sutra 2.18 says: “The seen exists only for the sake of the seer.”
Sutra 2.21: “The purpose of the known is to reveal the knower.”
Everything is unfolding to bring us closer to liberation.
So yes - this is happening for a reason.
To bring me home to myself.
To return me to samādhi (consciousness).
The Importance of Sadhana (Practice)
Right now, I am in the deepest sādhana of my life.
165 days of twice-daily meditation. Before that, 60 days. A short break in December. But now, it’s steady.
(After fifteen years of being in this yoga world… it’s finally clicking. It’s finally integrating.)
Yesterday, Anvita said to me:
“What we see from this is that when you’re doing sādhana, clarity comes really fast.”
And it’s true. Every breakthrough I’ve had this year came in sādhana—through mantra meditation or chanting.
What has sādhana clarified for me?
How to love myself and others—even those who’ve caused pain (intentionally or not).
How to tell the truth.
How to understand the purpose of this season of my life.
So I ask myself again:
If I am truly to love everybody,
Can I still love someone who’s caused me harm?
Can I see their humanness, even in letting them go?
Can I hold compassion for their pain, without abandoning myself in the process?
The Importance of Solitude
Anvita also reflected something else back to me:
Clarity must come in solitude.
This week, after spending 30 days straight not alone but in another person’s presence, I had an unplanned day and a half of solitude. (A new teaching job in Ubud - thank you, Universe - meant I had to leave my Uluwatu trip early. And in that quiet space, the clarity came.)
So what did this week teach me?
Solitude is essential. Even in a relationship. Especially in a relationship. We need space to disentangle from prakṛti, to be with ourselves, to feel what’s real.
Sādhana works. If you are sincere with sadhana, your practice will clarify your perception. It will align you with truth. Whether it’s asana, breathwork, meditation, chanting—whatever your sādhana is: do it every single day. Don’t stop.
Instagram numbs my compass. If you’re spending a lot of time on social media—take a look at that. Not with judgment, just with awareness. I’ve realized that my default is to scroll when I’m bored, but that scrolling cuts off my brain’s ability to process. When I got offline for ten days, I finally asked myself, “Am I okay?”
And the answer was: no.
And from there, everything changed.
What’s my practice now?
Love everyone.
Tell the truth.
See each person as a soul.
Step out of the drama triangle.
Hold love without sacrificing self-respect.
Stay on the path of liberation.
This means sadhana (practice), solitude, and not being on Instagram.
So that’s what I’ll do.
P.S. Yesterday I was eating a very messy breakfast burrito, and when I unraveled the cutlery, this note fell out. I felt like everyone needed to see it:
With love for all beings, everywhere, always.
Alexandra
P.S. There’s one single room left on my 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training starting in Bali July 7-27. Join here.
And, my next online Yoga Sutra Study course on Zoom starts in August. Save a spot and Join us here.
Missed you on here 😊