Have you ever ever tried to be taught to meditate however the considered sitting nonetheless to meditate made you so squirmy you threw in your meditation cushion throughout the room? For a lot of, quieting the thoughts feels extra like a chore than a second of peace. And that may be a barrier to creating an everyday meditation observe.
I’ve been a yoga instructor for greater than a decade. I will be flexible and twisty, feeling comfy in superior lessons. However the second meditation was launched, I began to squirm and my wandering thoughts simply bounced round like a pinball.
What if Conventional Meditation Strategies Don’t Work For You?
In my instructor coaching, we meditated and discovered how you can lead meditations – fundamental breath meditations, physique scan meditations, completely different focus meditations, and tons of different meditation strategies. However, it was not clicking for me. I satisfied myself that I couldn’t sit nonetheless, and I definitely couldn’t get my thoughts to nonetheless.
Even when I can’t do a particular pose myself, it’s no downside as a result of I nonetheless have the ability to information my college students into that pose. However for me, not having the ability to meditate felt completely different. So I didn’t introduce it into my lessons as a result of I didn’t really feel comfy speaking to my college students about stilling the physique and quieting the thoughts after I couldn’t.
As my yoga observe and instructing grew to become extra superior I might at all times really feel that I used to be missing for not being “a meditator.” And no quantity of meditation ideas or meditation strategies have been serving to.
Ultimately, I found the bridge I wanted to lastly settle into an everyday meditation observe. It was Yin yoga. Yin yoga is a type of yoga the place you maintain a posture for an prolonged time frame … like full minutes of time, not simply 5 – 10 breaths. Have you ever already tuned out considering it’s not for you? Hear me out.
Yin yoga can supply a gateway to mindfulness meditation for these of us who discover conventional approaches difficult. Let’s discuss how Yin yoga helped me begin meditating and would possibly give you the chance that will help you unlock the meditative state you didn’t assume you can attain.
Enter Yin Yoga
In increasing my information of yoga, I attempted completely different class types. Being a stream yoga lover, a sluggish observe the place I’d solely do 6-8 poses appeared like my worst nightmare. Nevertheless it turned out to be simply the other – Yin was precisely what I wanted to easily focus and really feel calmer.
Yin is a passive observe that as Bernie Clark writes within the Full Information to Yin Yoga, “physiologically … targets the deeper connective tissues.”
It’s a cool observe, that means that you shouldn’t go into it with a warmed up physique and it’ll not be a cardio observe that heats you up. The observe’s “intention is to soundly, reasonably stress our joints to advertise the well being of the tissues in and round our joints—to not overly lengthen these tissues” (Yoga Journal April 2023).
And sure, physiologically it did all that, however I additionally discovered a approach to enter a meditative state.
Practising Yin has many similarities to meditation, beginning with sitting in “stillness.”
Consider Childs pose. Have you ever ever taken a category and also you begin in Childs pose? Particularly when it’s your first form on the yoga mat as you first widen your knees and ease your sit bones in direction of your heels you may need to wiggle to handle the bodily sensations of the pose. It doesn’t begin out feeling restful however after just a few deep breaths your physique begins to settle in and your rest response comes on-line.
Then, you would possibly discover that you simply’re in a position to now get your head right down to the ground. You might discover your arms can inch ahead slightly extra. Your breath begins to even out. Your thoughts would possibly even start to give attention to the sound of your breath versus every other ideas your personal thoughts introduced into the room.
Congratulations – you will have simply completed Yin yoga.
How Yin Yoga is Like a Meditation Session
Whereas I used to be specializing in my breath, stepping into every Yin pose, and permitting my physique to proceed to regulate I used to be in “the second.” I wasn’t eager about an electronic mail I had to reply to when class was completed. Or eager about what I ought to have mentioned within the assembly 5 days in the past.
I used to be linked to my physique and my breath and – little did I do know – I used to be participating in a meditation observe – even when it wasn’t the way in which we historically consider sitting meditation.
I used to be having a continued dialog with myself seeing if the discomfort of relative stillness I felt was my autopilot mind simply wanting to maintain transferring on to one thing else, or my physique saying that it had to get out of the form. My thoughts was totally immersed with curiosity on the precise second I used to be in.
My “doing” mentality was happy as a result of I used to be “doing” yoga. The “being” mentality of meditation – of being within the current second – was additionally happy.
A New Perspective on Mindfulness Meditation
It took me awhile of constant observe with Yin to appreciate that what I used to be doing was meditation. I used to be mindfully within the current second. It enabled me to get out of my very own means and understand that there isn’t a proper or mistaken approach to meditate.
Ultimately, I used that very same set of abilities from my Yin observe to start to take a seat in what you’d usually consider as a meditation observe (sit loosely cross-legged, eyes closed). I’ve a cushion and I pop on an app’s guided meditation for five or 10 minutes.
Some days I’m in it, in a position to keep centered with few distractions, and different days my thoughts wanders. However I can sit with the stillness and supply myself light reminders commonly to information my thoughts in direction of that too, even when it’s a fleeting second.
So if meditation is in your 2025 listing of intentions and also you bristle on the thought of having the ability to sit nonetheless for even a minute, strive Yin yoga.
Have you ever ever tried Yin earlier than? What was your expertise? Drop us a notice under. –Tam
___________________________________________
Tam Turse, M.A., RYT-500 is the Editor at FBG. When she isn’t enhancing, writing, or working a 9-5 advertising and marketing job, she might be instructing a yoga class or coaching for her subsequent marathon. Yow will discover her on IG @tamturse .
