Let it Be: The Healing Power of Santosha for Disordered Eating

By Dr. Agatha Glowacki, Guest Contributor

I am naturally a very competitive person, and I am most competitive with myself. That disposition has helped me achieve great things in my life - such as graduating from Harvard, getting a PhD, and becoming a Fulbright Scholar - but it has also led to harmful ways of relating to myself. For most of my life, I demanded perfection and embraced the attitude that anything less is not acceptable. This attitude led me to a very unfulfilling way of life, since nothing was ever enough. After I achieved something, I wasn’t pleased and satisfied - I wanted the next big thing. My focus was always on the future.

One of the unfortunate victims of this attitude was my body. Firstly, I treated my body in a utilitarian fashion - it was only important to the extent it let me get what I wanted. And what did I want? I wanted to gain approval and acceptance from others and from society. Since our culture proclaims that looking good means being thin, I internalized that message. Thus started an unhealthy journey towards becoming as thin as I could. I restricted food, exercised heavily, and obsessed about my body size. It was exhausting.

Meanwhile, around the same time, I was drawn to yoga. I think there was some part of me that yearned to develop a different way of relating to my body, and intuitively knew that yoga could help me make that change. I loved going to classes and began to actually notice and pay attention to my body. Imagine that! Soon thereafter, I trained and became a yoga teacher.

During my training, we learned about the yamas and niyamas of yoga. The niyamas lead us towards a more positive relationship with ourselves, and one in particular stood out to me - santosha. The niyama of santosha roughly translates to contentment. In other words, it means accepting and appreciating what we have and what we are already. This was quite literally the opposite of what I had been doing. Instead of constantly seeking to become better, being constantly involved in self improvement, and being wrapped up tightly in feeling “not enough,” this niyama was telling me to let that all go. To instead turn towards what I already was and what I had, and to appreciate it. To stop grasping towards the future, and to embrace the present moment.

“By contentment, the highest happiness is attained.” – The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Sutra II.42

Doing a complete switch to my approach in life seemed daunting at first, but that is what the yoga practice is for. I began slowly but surely to try out santosha on my yoga mat. Whenever my natural competitive self would emerge and I would look around the room to see how others were doing, in order to compare myself, I would catch myself and stop. Instead, I would practice looking inside and telling myself “you are perfect just where you are.” I would practice tuning into my body sensations and become present with myself. I would ask myself, “what can I do to feel even more comfortable, content, at ease here?” This practice and discipline allowed me to stop comparing to those around me and just sink into my own experience, in the present moment.

Slowly, this practice started seeping into my daily life, to include my disordered approach to my body and to food. When I started to compare myself to others, I would stop and ask myself, “how can I be content and happy right now, right here?” I learned to connect to a grounded, natural sense of being ok. When comparing thoughts would emerge, I would silently respond by saying to myself, “let it go, let it go, I’m ok just as I am.”

I was amazed by the power of such simple statements when given with sincerity to one’s own being. It allowed me to soften and relax, which led me to opening up to an innate and ever-present sense of “ok-ness”. I soon realized that acceptance is a type of superpower. It transmutes things that could be negative and destructive into something nurturing and empowering.

In addition to yoga, I embraced another practice that helped me deepen my practice of santosha, the practice of gratitude. Instead of fixating on what I didn’t have, I instead switched my attention towards that which I already had. I would just sit quietly and think of all the things I was grateful for, experiencing a warmth in my heart. It soon became a daily discipline - I would end each day by listing out at least five things I was grateful for. This practice changed my approach to life from one of dissatisfaction and frustration to one of acceptance and fulfillment.

This all influenced my relationship with my body and my perspective around food. I learned to appreciate my body for the variety of ways it made my aims, desires, and goals possible. Gratitude began to spring naturally from my heart. I began to catch myself when comparing with others, and instead turn inward and soothe my insecurity. I learned to nurture my being by affirming and accepting where I was at. I embraced a new mantra that powerfully reminded me of this new way of being - repeating “darling, let it be, let it be. It is ok. Let go.” I became my own best friend, instead of a task master that was never satisfied.

I am eternally grateful for yoga and its deep body of teachings. Who knows where I would have ended up had I not stumbled upon the niyamas? I am so incredibly grateful and “content” to have found this wisdom and my only wish is to share my story and experience so that others might also learn from this amazing teaching.

Will you join me? “Let it be. It is all ok.” And so it is.

Agatha Glowacki, PhD, is a federal government employee and yoga teacher based in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. She has a passion for contemplative practices that deepen the mind-body connection. In addition to yoga, she has extensive experience in both Buddhist and Christian meditation. She is currently enrolled in a training led by the renown Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield to become a meditation teacher. A lover of all animals, she is the proud mother of three adorable cats and a lovable dog, who have perfected the art of santosha.