To know ourselves, we need to see ourselves, through awareness.

In the Svastha Yoga Therapy Program we work with multiple domains of wellbeing, such as Breathing, Movement, Feeling, Thoughts, Nutrition & Lifestyle, and more. Under each of these domains, we map out the skills that anyone needs in order to be well.

In many of these domains, awareness is one of the essential skills. Awareness is itself a separate domain with its own set of skills in detail. But in a basic way, awareness is necessary as a component skill under other domains.

Why is awareness essential? The skill of mindfulness is key to knowing what is happening in us. Mindfulness makes it possible for us to watch over ourselves. On that ground of mindfulness, we can then analyze, understand, and decide what changes to make.

Millennia ago, sage Patanjali explained how the cycle of unconscious patterns and conscious experiences (the wheel of vṛtti and saṃskāra) underlies our entire life. Every thought, word, or action that we do occurs upon the background of physiology and psychology that is below our conscious threshold.

To implement meaningful change, we must be able to observe this cycle of what our unconscious brings up for us and what our conscious choices are on that foundation. We can do this in various domains.

For instance, to understand how to move better, we should first become aware of our current movement patterns. To breathe better, we must pay attention to our breathing as it is now. To regulate our feeling states, we must observe how we feel in body and mind. And so on.

Of course, mere awareness is not enough; we also need the knowledge to understand what we observe and how to change it. That is why there are multiple skills under each domain. After all, just being aware of our movement patterns is not enough. We must also know how exactly to move better, through understanding and practicing other skills the movement domain.

This is one way to appreciate why any journey towards greater wellbeing has to be integrative: skills from various domains support each other.

In the Awareness domain, the skill of mindfulness is profoundly valuable. It can be a standalone practice, aimed at transforming the quality of our awareness itself. In that way, it is a key long-term practice in the pathway of yoga.

But mindfulness is also an essential practice to work with our wellbeing across other domains. To know ourselves, we need to see ourselves. Understanding the skills in the domain of Awareness enables us to do that.