The Third Law of Karma: The Law of Humility

When I was in yoga teacher training, I remember being told that in our next session, we’d be exploring the Law of Humility.

No thank you, I thought.

Humility sounded suspiciously like humiliated.

Instantly, my grammar school music teacher popped into my mind—and not in the warm-and-fuzzy nostalgia kind of way. Her name was Mrs. Holderroid, and once a week she’d wheel her upright piano into our classroom for sing-alongs.

I couldn’t tell you a single song we ever sang along to, but decades later, long after most of my classmates have forgotten her name, I never will.

It was first grade. While she was talking I drifted into a daydream. Mrs. Holderroid, apparently offended by my astral travel, decided to stop everything and stare at me.

Only… I didn’t notice. I was deep in my own little world.

Thankfully, my friend Kim, who sat right in front of me, kept whispering my name loudly until I snapped out of my daze.

I blinked back into reality to find the entire class staring and snickering.

My six year old little face lit up like a fire engine––flushed and burning with heat. I was mortified. Humiliated.

So, you understand why “The Law of Humility” didn’t sound like my kind of vibe.

But, as tempting as it was to suddenly come down with a mysterious 24-hour yoga flu, I showed up anyway. I probably looked at the yogiraj the way first-grade me looked at Mrs. Holderroid—bracing for doom.

What I found instead was something entirely different.

The Law of Humility isn’t about shame, punishment, or being put in your place.

It’s not about shrinking or being less-than.

In fact, it’s rooted in the Latin word humus, meaning earth.

Yoga philosophy says humility is about being grounded in Truth.

It’s about getting honest with yourself: about what’s working, what’s not, and what you’re ready to shift.

Not in a self-critical way. Not in a spiral of guilt or judgment.

But in a clear, grounded, honest way.

This is what’s here. This is what’s real. This is what I’ve created—consciously or unconsciously.

That takes courage.

Because getting radically honest with ourselves often means letting go of the stories we’ve clung to.

The ones that explain why things are the way they are.

The ones that give us a false sense of control, or a tidy excuse to stay stuck.

We might even have to release identities we’ve outgrown but still wear like armor.

But here’s the thing: the moment we accept the truth of where we are, we open the doorway to something new.

Because if we can’t acknowledge what is, we don’t have the power to choose something different.

That’s the gift of humility—it brings us back to earth.

It helps us see clearly, without distortion, without defensiveness.

And from that place, we can make conscious, empowered choices.

If you’d like support with that, I made a short five-minute guided meditation called “Seeing Clearly, Choosing Differently.”

It’s a gentle practice to help you come back to earth, root into your truth, and shift from resistance to awareness—so you can move forward from a place of real power.

👉 [Click here to listen to the meditation now]

Humility isn’t about feeling small. It’s about standing tall in truth. And that’s where real change begins.

See you next week for Law #4!