Showing Up IS the Practice
It’s June. A new month, a new theme, and honestly, a fresh start, or maybe a restart, that feels like it arrived at exactly the right time.
This month inside the AUM@home Community, we’re working with the concept of tapas. That’s a Sanskrit word, and before your mind goes anywhere near a Spanish restaurant, let me explain what it actually means, because it’s one of those teachings that has a way of quietly changing how you see, and experience, everything.
Tapas is often translated as discipline or austerity. But I like to think of it as your inner fire. The kind of steady, glowing heat that keeps you moving in the direction you want to go, even when you don’t feel like it, even when life is loud, even when the easier thing would be to just skip it today.
Now let me clarify things by saying that this is not about pushing yourself harder. Nor is it about doing more. Tapas is about showing up consistently for the things that matter to you. And that, for most of us, is actually the harder work.
Your Inner Fire
Think about the element of fire for a moment. Fire needs two things: fuel and oxygen. Without both, it doesn’t matter how much wood you have stacked up, the flame will go out. Our inner fire works the same way. The fuel is our intention, our practice, the small choices we make each day. The oxygen is the breath, the space we give ourselves, the willingness to keep going even when it’s imperfect.
That’s tapas. Not a blazing inferno. A steady, tended and functional flame.
What tapas Looks Like in Life
Here’s what tapas looks like in my life recently.
Every morning, before the day gets going, I sit. Even for just a few minutes. My meditation practice isn’t fancy or particularly long. But it’s mine, and it’s consistent, and I’ve come to understand that consistency is where the real transformation lives. Some days I have 40 minutes for practice, and some days I have the capacity for 5. The length of time spent isn’t the important piece here. It’s the repeated showing up that matters.
I also walk every single day. Rain or shine, tired or not. Not because I have to, well, if you asked my dog he’d say I most certainly have to, but because I’ve learned what happens when I don’t. As much as my body benefits from a 30-60mins walk every day, it’s my mind that appreciates the experience. Even though I’m out there walking, I do what I can to make sure I’m walking in nature and that I take time to just pause and look at the natural world around me. Being in nature helps me breathe deeper and slow down, even on the busiest of days.
And I practice abhyanga, which is an Ayurvedic self-massage with oil. My practice looks a little different than the traditional method, but it fits my life and makes me feel better. Where the traditional practice includes a full head to toe warm oil massage in the morning before showering, I don’t have time for that. So instead, I give myself a foot massage almost every evening before slipping on comfy fuzzy socks and put my feet up while enjoying an episode of my latest Netflix obsession, journalling, or reading a book to help me settle in for the night. It takes five to ten minutes to complete and the oil I use smells delicious. And the best part is that I always feel that much more grounded afterwards.
These are some of the most tangible acts of self-respect. Each one send a little message to myself that affirms: you matter enough to tend to.
None of these things are dramatic. None of them take a huge amount of time. But they are deliberate. And that deliberateness, that quiet act of choosing yourself again and again, is exactly what tapas is about.
What This Means for You
I want to offer you something to sit with this month.
Discipline, real discipline, isn’t about white-knuckling your way through something you hate. It isn’t about punishing yourself into better habits. Tapas is about self-respect. It’s the recognition that you are worth showing up for. That your health, your energy, your inner life matter enough to tend to, even when it’s inconvenient, even when no one else would know if you skipped it.
When you roll out your mat even though you’re tired, that’s tapas.
When you drink the water instead of the third coffee, that’s tapas.
When you pause, take a breath, and choose the wiser response instead of the reactive one, that’s tapas too.
The practice is everywhere. You just need to remember to notice it and meet it, and yourself, with a little more intention.
This month, we’re exploring tapas through our Yoga and Ayurveda practices inside the community. We’ll look at what it means to build a sustainable fire in the body and the breath, how to work with the energy and the will, and how to keep showing up even when life does what life does.
And if you want to practice and learn alongside us, you’re always welcome there.
You can try AUM@home free for 7 days. No pressure. Just come and see if it feels like just the thing you’ve been looking for.
Because the most important thing tapas teaches us is this: showing up is the practice. Not perfectly. Not every single day without fail. Just again, and again, and again.
That’s everything. And that’s enough.
Big love,
xoM
