Craving, Compassion, & the Fire of Tapas

by Jessica Girija Jewell

Monday brought a familiar kind of overwhelm. Emails, small tasks, cooking, conversations—one thing after another. Nothing unusual. Just the layered intensity of life moving quickly and all at once.

Somewhere in the middle of it, my body started to signal that something was off. My shoulders were tense, my breath had gone shallow, and my brow was furrowed. By the time I noticed, the separation was already underway—my mind and body were moving in different directions.

This is the opposite of yoga. 

Yoga means to yoke—to bring together what has come apart. And the practice of yoga begins by noticing when the separation between body, mind, and soul has happened, and doing what’s needed to bring ourselves back into wholeness.

Unyoking can sneak in—especially when we’re busy or overstimulated. One moment things feel fine, and the next, the body is tight and the mind is somewhere else entirely. That drifting apart can be hard to catch in the moment. But with a little time, it becomes recognizable.

As the busy-ness subsided, I noticed that I wanted food. Not because I was hungry—I wanted the pleasure of food. I wanted to feel good, to feel present inside my body. And although food can seem like the answer, I’ve learned it’s not. The deeper longing is to feel integrated again—to have the body and mind in the same place. That’s what actually feels good.

I’ve had this experience many, many times. This craving for food-as-comfort is part of a deep-seated, repeating pattern—a samskara, a mental impression rooted in memory and conditioning. When triggered, it sets off a karmic cascade: thought, feeling, and action arise almost all at once. The response is fast, familiar, and usually automatic.

Over time and with practice, yoga trains us to become more observant. In asana, in pranayama, and in the quieter spaces of contemplation, we learn to notice what’s arising—sensations, thoughts, impulses—without immediately reacting. That pause is the beginning of something new.

Tapas is one of yoga’s essential disciplines—one of the niyamas. It’s the conscious kindling of the fire of transformation that’s lit when we choose to think, speak, or act in a new way. Tapas begins with a clear, often difficult decision: to stop responding habitually to a samskara.

We might come to that decision because the pattern has caused harm—or simply because we’re tired of the repetition. Either way, the moment we commit to change, the fire begins.

Over the last year, this particular samskara—eating for pleasure—has become more visible. Since menopause, my body has changed. My metabolism has slowed, and I simply don’t need as much food as I once did. I could keep eating the way I always have and live with the discomfort—feeling heavy in my body, sluggish, dulled. I could chase a medical fix or double down on exercise to compensate.

Or—I can take another pass at healing. I can meet this samskara within the reality of this stage of life. This is the lived work of responding differently to the same pattern in new conditions.

Tapas is the way forward. It’s the discipline to interrupt the old response, to stay present with what arises, and to do something different—even when the new way feels uncertain or unfamiliar. Sometimes we don’t know exactly what to do—we just know not to repeat what no longer serves.

The fire of tapas isn’t symbolic. It’s a real heat of burning through old ways of thinking, speaking, or acting. And it must be kindled tenderly—with ahimsa, the yogic commitment to compassion and non-harming. Without ahimsa, the fire can scorch or consume. But when compassion is present, the fire transforms—softening the samskaras and making space for something new to take root.

So the practice is to keep practicing. To take what yoga teaches us on the mat and live it into the messy, ordinary places that are the real field of practice: the cravings, the aging body, the unfamiliar choices. The moments where discipline and tenderness are both needed.

This is how transformation begins.

Is there a samskara in your life that’s ready to come into the fire?

Can you meet it—not with judgment, but with curiosity, compassion, and a willingness to grow?