Shift Your Perspective (Pratyahara)

Pratyahara is the withdrawal of the senses from the external world. This week, give yourself a chance to exist without all the distractions.
I practice mindfulness is much as possible but, it's particularly difficult while I'm in the shower to stay focused on the process. I'm just so habitual with it that it's automatic and I don't have to focus. My mind wanders, my ability to notice my surrounding fades in and out with my attention to my thoughts. It would be confusing to try to watch a movie if they made the movie the way we actually existed in the world, with these pauses in our attention to our surroundings to layer over memory or emotion or whatever we happened to be distracted by. That's our whole lives, spent in and out of our external environment trying to match up what's inside with what's outside and vice versa.
Hopefully, you get so focused on yoga that it becomes something that is all-consuming (in the best possible way). Have you ever read a book or watch a movie or painted a picture or listened to a song where you got so involved in it, so ensconced in what you were doing or what you were experiencing, that the rest of the world went away? That's the practice of pratyahara. 

We spent so much time in our senses, it makes sense that we would be easily depressed and more stagnant, more prone to be still in the winter. Everything about the weather outside is telling us to be home. This, of course, is just for our area of the world. Other areas of the world are experiencing the hottest time of their year at this point, so it's all about perspective. 

We all have a foundational idea or concept that we base our existence on. My parents always believed strongly that there was more good in people than evil and because I was raised with that idea from a very young age, that is my perspective on everything that people do in the world. Which gives me a lot of hope when I see all of the horrible things that happen because of people. I'm well aware that is not everyone's basis as they grow. Sometimes a parent's point of view can be entrenched in child and it gives them less skills to deal with the bad things that happen. It may be harder to shift a perspective that was set in childhood but it is not impossible. 
So, there is a dual purpose to the practice of pratyahara. Not only does it provide relief from the constant barrage of stimuli entering your mind, it allows for your attention to focus on the mind and its' machinations. It's another way you can create that "at home" space within yourself, by knowing yourself better.

It may be daunting to see and feel and smell and taste all of the ways in which it is cold and dark and not that much fun outside but it is possible to control your senses so that you are not as overwhelmed by their input. And then you are calmer & more peaceful. And, just maybe, you're a skier or a snowboarder, or a ice skater, or a snowshoer, or a cross country skier. There's lots of ways to enjoy the dark and cold.