Several years ago a friend gave me a huge leather chair. It’s green and it has a matching hassock. The chair was her father’s, and you can see through the stains and the scratches that the chair was well loved. My friend’s father felt content in that chair. He read the paper or told bedtime stories to his children. I’m content in that chair, too. It’s soft and easy and wraps around my body. The chair has wide arms that I can stretch my legs across and I’ve filled it with pillows that support my back. But the contentment I feel in that giant green chair is not the same contentment that is asked of us when we embrace Patanjali’s second Niyama, Santosha. The contentment I feel when wrapped in that chair is easy to come by.

But how do we find contentment when we are standing in the eye of a storm, or when we brush up against discomfort? How do we find contentment then?

I believe we can find contentment simply by witnessing ‘what is‘. If we choose to release our anxiety about the past and the future and if we choose to release the stories we tell ourselves about how life should be it will create the space needed for contentment to take a foothold. If we release expectations and instead choose to center ourselves in the here and now contentment will find us.

Contentment is a choice, a promise and a practice. Some choices are difficult to make. Some promises are difficult to keep. And sometimes we don’t want to practice.

It’s important we continue our practice of contentment, however, so that when we brush up against the hard edges in life – when the chair is less than comfortable – we can still rest in a place of comfort and ease.

It’s important we continue our practice of contentment so that, as yoga therapists, we can live what we are trying to teach. Accepting the circumstances in which we find ourselves is the essence of finding contentment. This is why santosha is important in yoga therapy. Our clients are on a journey of acceptance. Santosha can hold space for that acceptance.