It’s the time of year when we send out the old and welcome the new. A time of reflection and preparing for a fresh start. It’s the perfect time for an annual review—of your self-care.

How have you been treating the physical body, for which you are the steward? Have you been listening to the conversation your body has been trying to have with you? Do you treat yourself at least as well as you would treat a loved one? Are you compassionate with yourself? Have you been nurturing yourself emotionally?

Consider for a moment the internal messages you repeat on a daily basis. Are they messages of love? “You’re doing great. You’re out there getting it done! You help people!” Or do you also encounter messages of the other sort: “You’re not smart enough to do that. You don’t follow through. You’re not attractive enough. You’ll never get it right.” Take a moment to listen to the messages that you hear—that you constructed, assumed, or were given—that you subconsciously repeat.

Which messages do you WANT to reinforce, deepening the groove of your samskaras. (Samskaras are impressions of our desires at the subtle level—you could imagine them like the grooves of a record (for those who are of the LP era/or audiophiles who love vintage sound). The more they are reinforced, the deeper the “groove” and the more powerful they become. You are not required to keep all the “gifts” you are given. In the spirit of Marie Kondo, decide now to throw out those that don’t bring you joy.

But how does one begin to shed these messages that are so embedded in our being that we don’t even hear them? Enter Yoga Nidra. Yoga Nidra, or yogic sleep, allows us to detach from the self for a 30,000-foot view. In this yogic sleep, we open to insight and have the power to become a witness to consciousness, to acknowledge the difference between our soul and the person outside who is a composite of all their life experiences, and then free ourselves from all self-imposed bondages and limitations. Once you cast a light on negative self-talk (or self-think, as the case may be), it’s easier to see when it rears its ugly head next time. When you notice it, you can choose not to invite it in. Keep making this new, positive choice and THAT becomes a samskara. Or simply say the phrase "neti neti" (which means: "not this, not this") and give the mind a redirection.

Through the practice of Yoga Nidra, we can stop reacting to the circumstances of our life and instead, we can make conscious choices that direct who and how we are. Through this bridge between meditation and samadhi, we avoid the mental quicksand of intellectualizing and allow the body the multilayer, nonverbal, comprehensive experience that allows us to effect change at a deeper level.

Don’t forget that Yoga Nidra is a practice, and the more you give to the practice, the richer your experience will become.

Here’s a pre-practice you can begin tonight: Atma Tattva Avalokanam: It is the practice of observing the moments when you’re falling asleep—the movement from conscious to subsconcious to unconscious and that of waking up—unconscious to subsconcious to conscious. Be a witness to the process. Try to maintain awareness as the physical body releases into sleep.

Don’t be discouraged if it takes a while to develop this practice because you fall asleep. Our society is full of sensory information demanding our attention at every turn and it’s easy for the body to collapse into slumber once it has a break. Continue your practice. Set your intention—your sankalpa—and move toward greater awareness in this new year.

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