Adapt, adjust, accommodate. This magic phrase was given to me when I did my yoga teacher training at a Sivananda Ashram. In fact, we teacher trainees even sang this phrase during our twice daily chanting sessions.
“Adapt, adjust, accommodate” is advice passed down from Swami Sivananda, the late Indian spiritual leader and proponent of yoga.
These words, repeated in my mind like a mantra during distressing times, have preserved my sanity, and, I might add, the sanity of many of the yoga students to whom I have given the phrase.
Some students have told me that remembering these three words during a disagreeable situation changed what was utter frustration into benign, manageable challenge.
Consider this: it is not really your external circumstances that steal your peace and contentment and produce so much stress in your life: it is actually your many notions about the way things should be.
What do you do when life hands you something that you didn’t desire or expect? You react, usually negatively.
You may strongly resist, attempting to force things go your way, generally with ugly consequences. Or you may blame others for the unpleasant situation, causing much unhappiness for all. Or you may wallow in self pity.
When I was doing my yoga teacher training at the ashram, I tented in an area of the grounds adjacent to the yoga kids’ camp. I and other “serious” yoga trainees were bothered by the rowdy, un-yogic behavior of the kids in the nearby cabins.
One of these kids actually snuck a large toad into my tent. There was quite a commotion when the toad became active in the middle of the night.
Being the mature, proactive adults that we were, several of the students tenting near kids’ camp approached the ashram directors with our complaints.
At the next gathering, we perked up when the swami mentioned our discontent, expecting to hear the measures that would be taken to keep the children’s behavior in check. Perhaps the kids’ counselors would be taken to task.
I was deflated when the swami announced that if we tenters were not happy with our present situation, we were welcome to move our tents up on the hill (where a rainy day meant a soggy tent).
None of us chose to move up the hill, and I believe we all learned the same lesson that day.
We had thought that circumstances should change to meet our notion of the idyllic yogic setting. In reality, we needed to learn that it was precisely our notions and our resistance to anything that was counter to them that created our discontent.
Now I give to you the three words: adapt, adjust, accommodate. In all trials and tribulations remember these words and act accordingly. Now you know the secret to peace.
