IN THE YOGIC TRADITION, a key to following through with
your intentions is tapas, or self-discipline. Derived from
the Sanskrit root tap, which means “to heat,” tapas is
about burning off your bad habits through restraint and
even purifi cation. It’s all about lighting a fi re under—
and within—you.
Sometimes, tapas can literally be felt as heat in the
body—like the burn of a deep Utkatasana (Chair Pose)
that transforms weakness into strength. On a psychologi-
cal level, tapas can be interpreted more metaphorically: It’s
the friction or resistance that arises when we go against the
overwhelming momentum of our ingrained habits. “Tapas
is the discomfort generated when one habitual pattern rubs
up against a new one,” says Nicolai Bachman, a Sanskrit
scholar based in Denver and author of The Path of the Yoga
Sutras: A Practical Guide to the Core of Yoga.
The yoga greats, including B.K.S. Iyengar, knew the
power of the seemingly simple concept that self-discipline
allows for growth and transformation. As Iyengar wrote
in his seminal book Light on Yoga: “The whole science
of character building may be regarded as a practice of
tapas.” The good news is that you can easily tap into
tapas, which is one of the fi ve niyamas, or principles that
guide behavior in yoga philosophy. For example, perhaps
2o 1 7 is the year you want to start a daily morning medita-
tion practice. The fi rst few weeks or even months, there
may be days you wake up and immediately hit snooze.
But the more you force yourself to get up, sit on your
meditation cushion, and reap the benefi ts of your prac-
tice—despite the friction between your new habit and
the old, less demanding one of sleeping in—the easier it
becomes and the sooner the new, healthier habit sticks.
The same persistent process, always applied gently, can
also help us shed undesirable patterns like negative self-
talk, binge eating, and unhealthy ingrained reactions,
says Marla McMahon, a clinical psychologist and yoga
STORY BY KATE SIBER
SEQUENCE BY HEATHER LILLESTON
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEFF NELSON
teacher in Sacramento, California. “Being able to
be with that suffering—ultimately, that’s where we
grow,” says McMahon. “I see growth and transforma-
tion when clients are able to put tapas into daily prac-
tice even if I don’t use that term specifi cally. And it does
get easier the more you practice it.”
There are few better tools than asana practice to
help you hone your tapas training. Holding a diffi cult-
for-you pose on your yoga mat can prepare you for stay-
ing with discomfort in your daily life, helping you to
launch into serious self-study and not be controlled by
that which makes you uncomfortable. (“Discomfort”
in this case refers to situations in which you’re not in
imminent danger, not extreme situations like abuse.)
“When we practice tapas on the mat, we practice sitting
with whatever sensations and conversations arise for
us, without running away,” says Heather Lilleston,
a Los Angeles–based yoga teacher and co-founder of
Yoga for Bad People, an organization that hosts inter-
national retreats that aim to help you shift your per-
spective. For instance, for a yogi with tight hips, staying
in Pigeon Pose for an extra 1 o breaths may mean expe-
riencing a truly transformative hip stretch. For a practi-
tioner of intense Ashtanga Yoga, moving through the
discomfort of a slow, restorative class, knowing that it
will eventually breed clarity and calm, could be consid-
ered tapas training. “Sometimes what we need to see is
that if we stay, we are actually OK—that we do have the
strength and are able to get through it, and in that way
the world slowly becomes less scary,” says Lilleston.
On the following pages, Lilleston offers a heat-
building practice to help you create tapas—physically,
mentally, on the mat, beyond the studio walls, and on
into 2o 1 7.
OWER
If nixing bad habits were easy, we’d all be perfect. The secret to making
change stick when things get tough? Harnessing your discomfort and
transforming it into personal power through your yoga practice. Here’s how.
I y t a e a
