Have you ever practiced yin yoga? I'll confess. When I first practiced yin, it was a huge struggle for me.
Unlike my familiar, sweaty and heated power yoga practice where I flow from one pose to the other, yin yoga is all about staying in a pose for what can feel like eternity. Poses last four, five, and sometimes even, ten minutes long.
When practicing yin, it wouldn't take long for me to get so uncomfortable. I'd get restless. My hips would scream at me. I'd start building a case in my mind for why yin was a waste of time. Why stay and hold a pose when I could move and sweat? All I wanted to do was move, but I had to stay.
The yoga teacher in me understood why yin yoga is important. Our bodies hold yin and yang energy. Yin is the energy of rest and slowing down. Yang is the energy of movement and action. Our bodies need a balance of yin and yang energy to feel our best.
You and I both know the satisfaction of getting $hit done. Ticking things off a to-do list. Completing a project. This is our yang energy. Both on our yoga mat and in our life, accomplishing can be so rewarding.
My resistance to yin yoga was enough for me to question the role of yin and yang energy in my life. I started to see that I was living in almost all yang energy, and to be quit honest, it wasn’t working for me.
* My body was saying no thank you. Nagging injuries, exhaustion and stress signals were telling me that I was doing way too much.
* I felt like I was running in circles and could never get to a finish line. Every accomplishment only meant I could do more. Uggh. A little voice inside my head said, when can I relax?
* My relationship with food was changing and I knew I had to be with my feelings. Yep, easier to write than to do. But so incredibly necessary. I realized that all of that doing and accomplishing was my way of running away from how I felt.
Healing our relationship with food means we need to feel our bodies. We can’t feel if we are so busy distracting ourselves with the next task, project or goal. We have to stop and be still.
Can you relate?
This pandemic is forcing us to practice yin yoga. Stay where you are. Just hold the pose.
Are you resisting this slow down, like I resisted yin yoga years ago?
Maybe you're just feeling a lot and you're not sure what to do with it. Maybe you're negotiating with yourself. Maybe you're desperate to move. I get the discomfort.
Your inbox and social media feed may be filled with the yang energy that’s asking you to use this time to do and be productive.
Pivot your business. Learn a new language. Declutter your house. Challenge yourself with a new workout.
And when it comes to your relationship with food, some may be suggesting it’s time to eat healthier and maybe even lose some weight.
To all of those suggestions, I invite you to consider for yourself how balanced you’ve been with the yang energy of doing and accomplishing and the yin energy of receiving and softening before we’ve been sheltering in place.
What has your body been telling you?
Have you noticed the quiet whispers of wanting something more by doing a whole lot less?
Are you suspecting there is a better way to live than always be moving a million miles an hour?
Have you noticed that all of the energy you’ve been using to try to control your relationship with food and eat all of the right things has been exhausting?
We are holding one long extended yin yoga pose. We are being asked to release tension so we can feel more expansive. We are being asked to go inside of ourselves and sit with how we feel.
I understand that you may want to run away from this pose, distract yourself, and try to restore normalcy to your life. But really, sheltering in place is offering us an opportunity to restore balance.