When my son was in first grade, he started experiencing anxiety. We talked about it a lot, and I gave him cards with my picture on them and notes written on the back to carry in his pockets to help him feel more secure. One note that helped him and that he still remembers today is this quote: “Your mind is a garden. Your thoughts are the seeds. You can grow flowers, or you can grow weeds.” I’ve seen this and a slightly different version attributed to Osho and another similar quote attributed to William Wordsworth. Whoever the actual author is, the version we used was catchy and easy to remember, and it made sense to a small child. I sometimes use it sometimes to remind myself that I control what goes into my head and what I cultivate there.

The quote popped into my head as I studied the first Niyama, Saucha, which translates as “purity” or “cleanliness.”

Having finished the Yama series last week, we start this week on the Niyama series. In yoga philosophy, Niyamas are observances prescribed for a healthy life and spirit.

While Saucha can apply to physical cleanliness (certainly a good thing) or moral purity or clean eating, one application very relevant to modern life is keeping a clean mind through curating what we allow to grow there.

Over the past several years, I have found it increasingly necessary to manage what I read or watch. When my stress level was chronically elevated for so many years during the heat of our son’s struggle, the world started to feel increasingly heavy. That can still happen if I don’t intentionally guard against it. To be honest, I don’t seek out news. I figure that, if there is something important enough that I need to know, someone in my family will tell me, or I will learn about it on social media. In my car I listen to an audiobook or podcast of my own choosing. This minimizes my exposure to radio news.

I have also gotten better, although not perfect, at stopping people in my life if they rant about stressful topics. It does absolutely no good to create problems we don’t have or to replay and rehash a stressful event.

Just the other day, I was having lunch with a good friend, and I acknowledged that there is probably a line between curating my intake of news and conversation and burying my head in the sand. I am not sure that I know what that line is, but it still feels important to me to control what I let in. It is a survival technique.

Another quote that Saucha brings to mind is this one by Mahatma Gandhi, “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”

Regardless of where we stand on politics and so many other issues these days, there are plenty of “dirty feet” out there. It is my responsibility to remember that I control what gets nurtured and is allowed to grow in my mind. No matter how diligently I guard my mind and minimize my exposure, I can’t keep everything out. I can decide how I frame stressful situations. I can choose to ruminate on what I did wrong or on what might go wrong in the future, or I can instead “grow flowers” by deciding to create meaning or to find an opportunity for good in the situation.

It’s largely up to me.

How do you practice Saucha in your life?

Are there boundaries that you could create around what you allow into your mind?

Are your own thoughts growing more “flowers” or more “weeds”? How could you change that balance?

Let me know how this application of Saucha lands for you.