In Yoga, the nine Rasas (or ‘flavors’, ‘nectars’, ‘essences’ or ‘tastes’) can be used to describe the essential human emotions. The Navarasa (or Nine Rasas) are: Shringara (love or beauty), Hasya (laughter), Karuna (sorrow), Raudra (anger), Veera (heroism or courage), Bhayanaka (terror or fear), Bibhatsa (disgust), Adbhuta (awe or wonder) and Shantha (peace or tranquility) (source).
In this article we are going to specifically explore the qualities of Adbhuta Rasa and how we can bring this nectar to bear on any negative self-talk in a way that leads to greater personal insight, awareness and clarity.
What is Adbhuta Rasa?
At its heart, this particular Rasa is the flavor of wonder or awe. It can be the feeling that arises in the presence of the beauty of another, it can arise when looking at a piece of art, it might manifest as the sublime thing that happens when consumed by moving music, it can occur when watching your children play.
The other day I was reading an article in a magazine and there was one particular paragraph where the prose was just so exquisite, I had to read it three times and I sobbed the entire time. On my lunch break at a Yoga Festival, bawling my eyes out over a perfectly constructed piece of prose. This is what can happen when we experience Adbhuta Rasa.
Adbhuta Rasa has a sub component which is a more common way of us encountering this flavor on a day-to-day level. Rather than full awe—the kind that makes you sob, for example—Adbhuta Rasa can also show up as curiosity. Rather than ‘wonderment’, Adbhuta Rasa can also be experienced as intrigue; wondering about something, rather than wonder itself. It’s the ‘off the rack’ version of Adbhuta Rasa’s haute couture.
When we consciously choose to access this version of the nectar we open ourselves up to new information and ways of seeing the world.
The Inner Critic in a Paragraph (Or Two)
Essentially, the inner critic is one of the terms used to describe the voice in your mind that criticises and second-guesses your ideas and intentions as well as your sense of self.
“A person’s inner critic can play a significant role in shaping one’s identity and sense of self. This inner critic can be like a nagging voice that questions each decision and undermines each accomplishment, and it can leave a person with difficult feelings such as shame, inadequacy, or guilt.”
(Source)
Our inner critic is the voice in the mind that essentially wants tell us how shit we are, and unless we know how to work with it, our inner critic can take us out of the game.
It can mean that:
· We play small
· We give up on ourselves
· We self-abandon
· We collapse formally healthy boundaries
· We never go for what we really want
· We people-please
· We stay hiding
· We never achieve our vision or our goals
· We never stick up for ourselves…
All of these things and then some become more likely if we actually believe the inner critic’s trash talk.
But here’s the twist. Your inner critic is not your enemy. It's not something that you need to fight or look to block, or to be really militant about silencing or ignoring. When engaged with mindfully, your inner critic can be super useful.
Why Your Inner Critic Can Be Super Useful
Here is the thing. You have an inner critic for a reason. Not to give you heartache, not to
make you feel like shit, not to convince you of all the yucky things about yourself you might believe when you are having a low-vibe day.
Believe it or not, your inner critic is designed to keep you safe. That’s right! It can actually be a safety net to encourage more full consideration of the process and implications of encountering thinking, believing or doing something new.
Take this scenario: you want to teach a workshop about something that is new to you. Maybe you want to teach a headstanding workshop, and maybe your headstands are fairly new in your own practice. So, you plan your workshop, you launch it and start selling tickets. And all the while your inner critic says, ‘You can’t teach a headstand workshop because your headstands are rubbish! Who are you to even imagine doing that, you loser?’
Consider for a moment that this isn’t your inner critic simply trying to undermine your efforts. Imagine that this inner critic voice was a resource you could access to make your workshop EVEN better!
Bringing the Flavor of Wonder to Your Inner Critic
Once we understand that we do not need to fight with our inner critic, it’s trash talk can become really useful information. This is where Adbhuta Rasa comes into play.
Rather than taking the messaging on its face (‘You can’t teach a headstand workshop because your headstands are rubbish! Who are you to even imagine doing that, you loser?’) let’s bring curiosity to it and see if there are hidden meanings within the trashy talk.
Approaching it with Abhuta Rasa, we can wonder, what else can I take from this voice?
· Perhaps I need to simplify what I am going to teach so it is manageable for me and where I’m at in my own practice.
· Perhaps I am going to incorporate the elements of the workshop into my own daily practice for the next three weeks to make sure I’ve got it down when it comes time to teach it.
· Perhaps I’m going to workshop some ideas with a colleague to make sure my inversion cues are on point and safe.
· Perhaps I’m going to watch some senior teachers workshop inversions online to expand my teaching skills and feel more proficient.
Or
· Perhaps I’m going to delay my workshop two months so I feel rock solid in my own practice before I teach it.
Rather than fighting against our inner critic, we can say, ‘Thanks, friend. You're that familiar voice and even though I don’t always like the way you talk to me, I get where you’re coming from. I’m going to get curious about what your trashy talk could mean for me in a way that’s empowering and useful.’
In her book ‘One Degree Revolution: How Small Shifts Can Lead to Big Changes’, Yoga educator and leadership coach Coby Kozlowski writes, ‘Yoga remains a powerful and compelling way to look at your life, think about change and see the small shifts you can make so that you can skillfully engage.’
When we bring the Rasa of curiosity and wonderment to the inner critic's voice, it actually becomes an incredibly powerful tool that we can use for personal and, dare I say it, professional development. Rather than enabling the inner critic to foster self-doubt, we can say, ‘Oh wow! It's so curious that my inner critic is really kicking up a fuss about this topic. I wonder what's actually going on here?"
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