turning destructive patterns into liberating ones

shifting away from external validation, seeking intensity + rumination

I recently began a Daśa Mahavidyas Sādhanā with my teacher Tova.

The Daśa Mahavidyas are the great (Maha) wisdom (Vidyas) Goddesses in the Tantric tradition. They can mean and symbolise many different things; from stages of a woman’s life, stages of cosmological creation, the path from separation to realisation and aspects of the self. On the latter, they aren’t to be seen as God-like beings outside of us to be worshipped, even though they may exist in iconographical form in Puranic stories, but something that exists as aspects of us, within. Able to teach us something about what we may be rejecting, avoiding, manifesting or learning.

I’ll be diving deeper and sharing more thoughts as the Sādhanā and course continues throughout the summer, but a concept I’ll speak of today is the idea that ‘we rise by that which we fall.’ Meaning: the very tendencies that keep us stuck (the patterns or habits we’re most ashamed of) are actually the material of our evolution.

We all have destructive patterns and they vary from person to person. They may be conscious or unconscious. It may be seeking external validation. The tendency to seek intensity and look for/cause drama. A whirring, repetitive mind, ruminating over something without being able to break this loop.

Here’s the good news that comes from this concept: the same mechanism that’s running the destructive pattern can run the liberating one. All of these three examples (and there’s many more) can be channelled into something that takes us closer to freedom and away from insecurity.

We truly can be our own best teachers, and it’s up to us, our autonomy and our choices that determine how we direct our energy. We just have to start.

I’ll break down these three, and an example of how you might flip the switch.

Please bear in mind that I’m coming from a yoga & tantra background so this heavily informs my ‘flip the switch’ suggestions, but feel free to swap it out for your own, similar ritual or physical activity.

External Validation

The first example is the human need for external validation. Most of us are doing it constantly: checking how we’re received, adjusting ourselves to be liked (or to the male gaze), performing a version of ourselves we think will land with the people in the spaces we choose to be in. It could be our friends, colleagues, family or even on a date. If you’re adjusting yourself now or have done this in the past, you’ll know that it’s exhausting and can leave you feeling misaligned and not the most authentic you could be. It’s keeping us performing, not living. It also keeps us in a kind of spiritual adolescence, because we are constantly looking outwards for the signal that we’re enough, rather than that baseline feeling that wholeness has always been our state.

Flip the switch:

The same hunger and need to reach towards something outside yourself for a sense of stability is exactly what our yoga practice uses and harnesses for the better. If you practice Āsana (yoga postures, a more physical practice) or a practice like Puja or even meditation, it might seem like you’re still reaching outward, doing something, towards a ritual that’s outside of you. But by replacing the unhelpful habit of looking for validation with a sacred ritual we move into a deeper place of receptivity and away from the need for approval. We’re cutting this loop with a positive practice. The mechanism is the same. The direction has shifted from outwards to inwards. When this practice brings us into a state of receptivity, it’s not only the duration of the practice that it affects, but it’s off the mat/cushion too. Feeling a greater connection to yourself (body, mind and spirit) and making embodied and empowered decisions and actions moving forward, instead of from a place of insecurity. Even if at first it’s just a glimpse or a moment of feeling connected, a consistent practice helps us stay in this state.

The Tendency to Seek Intensity

A lot of us are quietly addicted to chaos: the drama, gossip, the crisis, the emotional spike. We don’t always notice it about ourselves, but we somehow keep recreating the conditions for it. Because calm feels, well, flat.

I love the quote ‘are you bored or are you just at peace’. Because truly, sometimes a slow and peaceful life feels boring.

In Tantra, we don’t shy away from intensity, especially in the framework of emotions. We aren’t trying to transcend or evolve past having emotions. Tantra tells us to use it to get closer to the truth of our human experience. Having emotions is a huge, important part of being human, and one we’re privileged to be able to experience in this life.

Flip the switch:

Where can we use this passion and this desire for intensity and feeling something, and channel it into something more liberating? A fiery Āsana focused class to sweat and cleanse our physical vessel, a 7 minute Kriya. Even into sport! Something that uses this fire-driven energy and that genuinely takes you somewhere freeing rather than spiraling you into chaos. We aren’t trying to get rid of our need for intensity, we are trying to use it to aid us.

Rumination

Do you ruminate? Sometimes the mind just won’t stop running things over and over. Most meditation traditions exported to the west will tell you to ‘detach’ and ‘transcend your thoughts.’ If you’re anxiously-inclined or a ruminator or generally have a busy mind, this advice isn’t the most helpful.

Flip the switch:

WHAT IF: that exact refusal of your mind to leave something alone, that compulsive returning, repetitive thoughts, even overthinking, is the exact quality that makes someone, for example, a serious and excellent student of philosophy? Or incredible in a debate? You take the mind that obsessively loops, and you give it something worth obsessing over. Even on a physical level, it could be a yoga posture you want to master. It could be the Gita or another layered and complex book, that you pick up multiple times a year and come away with different insights. It’s the same concept of looping and repetition, but channelled into a completely different outcome.

Within non-dual Tantra, we are using our humanity.

‘You can’t lose when the goal is to experience.’

There’s no need to shy away from the complex patterns and habits that make us human. But sometimes we can’t think our way out of something destructive, we have to flip a switch, break the loop and break the cycle with purpose and intention.

We rise by that which we fall simply means the fall and the rising aren’t actually energetic opposites. They’re the same current, running in different directions, it’s up to us to channel that current.