Ahimsa: The Art of Meeting Yourself with Gentleness

Dani Pritchard
Oct 18
2 min read

We often measure our life and our worth by how much we give, how much we do, produce, or hold together for others. But in doing so, we sometimes forget that how we receive matters just as much, if not more.

Ahimsa, the first of Patañjali’s eight limbs of yoga, invites us to explore this principle of non-harm not only in how we move through the world, but in how we move within ourselves. It asks us to live from a place of gentleness, a way of being rooted in kindness, compassion, and inner tenderness.

Remembering Softness

The Sanskrit word himsa means “to harm.” And harm begins the moment we forget to meet ourselves with softness. It arises when we drift away from love for ourselves and toward harshness, judgment, over-efforting, or over-pleasing.

The mirror of Ahimsa helps us recognise these subtle forms of self-harm, the ways we speak to ourselves, the unrealistic expectations we set, and the moments we deny our own needs in the name of being good, right, accepted, validated or enough.

The Energetics of Self-Compassion

Energetically, this is when our life force (prāṇa) contracts and turns inward against itself. It’s the quiet voice of self-criticism, comparison, or perfectionism, the thoughts that drain rather than sustain us.

When we live in this contracted state, our energy is spent battling ourselves. Emotionally, it feels like self-abandonment, a turning away from our needs and truth. The nervous system tightens, and our vitality begins to fade.

Returning to Love

Through Ahimsa, we remember how to meet ourselves with tenderness. We soften the edge of self-criticism into understanding and redirect our energy into self-love. We shift from pushing and striving to receiving, from efforting to ease.

This doesn’t mean we stop showing up or striving for excellence, it means we learn to do so from a place of love, not lack. Ahimsa is the quiet practice of returning, again and again, to the heart.