Parvati Magazine February 2014 - Sobriety | Page 8

YOGA

YOGA

TRUE SOBRIETY

From this perspective,
true sobriety exists only
when we are not “under the influence” of the
world around us. True
sobriety lives through the
eyes of an individual who
can remain untouched
by life’s stresses, traumas,
and struggles.
We are all born with
a sense of purity, untouched, unharmed. We
all breathe, move, cry,
laugh, crawl, walk… If
we are lucky enough, we
are loved, we hear hands
clapping when we succeed, we get treats for
learning new tasks, we
are held without having
to ask. This is the beauty
of childhood, or so we
would hope.
As time passes, we are
often faced with a rude
awakening. We learn
that we can’t always
have our way, that we
can’t please everyone,
that we won’t always
have people clap their
hands and cheer us on
for all that we do. Life as
we knew it had changed.
It is not surprising that so

What would the
world look like
if we could walk
through it with
the sobriety of
a newborn child?

W

hat is Sobriety?

There is one definition that many of us are all too familiar with: The abstinence from alcohol, drugs and
any mood-altering substances. Thus, the term “sobriety” is often thought of as the opposite of being
“under the influence” of some form of mood and
mind-altering substance.
Wikipedia offers another definition of “sobriety”, as
“the natural state of a human being given at birth”.

many of us learn very
quickly that there are
coping strategies, albeit
very unhealthy coping
strategies for the longterm. Nonetheless,
the focus is on getting
through now.
We learn that there are
so many ways to escape
our reality, be it through
the traditional substances
like alcohol, drugs and
painkillers, or through
dissociation, anger outbursts, sex, food, etc. We
feel damaged, as we
can never return to the
natural state of purity we
were once born with.
We feel saddened by
the harsh nature of the
world. We feel p