Week 1: The Niyamas – Cleaning Up Your Boundaries with Self

Welcome to Week 1! This week, we’re diving into the Niyamas, which are personal practices and observances from the yogic tradition designed to guide how we relate to ourselves. Think of them as the inner work—the foundation for self-discipline, self-awareness, and self-care.

The Niyamas encourage us to take an honest look at the ways we care for and honor ourselves, including our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. They ask: Are you showing up for yourself in the way you want others to show up for you? Are you creating the inner structure and practices that set you up for success and alignment?

Throughout this week, we’ll explore five key principles of the Niyamas:

1. Tapas (Discipline): Building the fire of commitment to your growth.
2. Saucha (Purity): Cleansing and decluttering, both internally and externally.
3. Svadhyaya (Self-Study): Becoming deeply curious about your patterns, thoughts, and habits.
4. Santosha (Contentment): Cultivating gratitude and acceptance of where you are now.
5. Ishvarapranidhana (Surrender): Trusting the process and connecting to something greater than yourself.

These principles aren’t about perfection—they’re about creating intentional practices that empower you to nurture your energy and boundaries. Over the next seven days, you’ll discover how integrating these Niyamas into your life can help you create a stronger, more supportive relationship with yourself.

How We’ll Be Integrating the Niyamas

Each day, you’ll receive a video lesson that dives into one specific Niyama or its application. These lessons will include a somatic practice to help you embody the principle—not just understand it intellectually but feel it in your body and energy.

Your homework (or, as I like to call it, your "deepening work") will give you space to reflect and apply the day’s lesson. Whether through journaling prompts, guided exercises, or mindfulness practices, this work will help you uncover where your boundaries with yourself may need more clarity, love, or structure.

This week is about showing up for yourself every day—not just in the lessons, but in how you care for your energy, mind, and spirit. The small, consistent choices you make during these 21 days will ripple outward, helping you to build trust in yourself and create the foundation for the energetic mastery we’ll explore later in the course.

Let’s begin this week by asking: What does it mean to show up for yourself, and where can you begin cleaning up your inner space?