I was reading in the Globe and Mail about a relationship counsellor, Joe Rich, who helps people with their dysfunctional relationships at work. He says genuine problems should be minimized or ignored but instead “we are guilty of doing magnification”. When we feel anxious we magnify things when we should really try to make them smaller.

This makes me think of drishti. Drishti is the steady gaze that we maintain during a yoga pose. It’s holding a visual focus point. And this is important in yoga because if you let your gaze bounce around all over the place your mind will follow. Maintaining a calm gaze makes for a calm mind. But it also helps to look at the quality of that gaze.

In my Power Yoga class we were doing a challenging Side Plank and people were practicing drishti because you have to in a balancing pose. I suggested to make it feel less intense they soften their gaze. Someone said “hey that really works!”

It’s the quality of drishti that brings us back to magnification. If you ‘glare’ like the way you’d look at a teenager who just came clean about joy riding all night in your car - you’re practicing magnification. It’s like the ‘glare’ holds your mind and body in an ‘uh-oh’ response. Instead, to make things smaller, or to make the experience less intense, soften your gaze. Allow your eyes to rest. Someone suggested to me that it’s almost like your eyes are going to go out of focus. It’s impossible to feel that things aren’t manageable. You may find it’s handy for dealing with Side Plank and teenagers.