Yin yoga - the journey home

Yin yoga has definitely changed my life for the better. The things I’ve learned from yin yoga have impacted my other movement practices as well as my daily life. In this essay I will explain some of the aspects of yin that have been most transformative for me.

1. Learning to slow down.
   Before I started practising yin yoga, I was not aware of the constant pressure from society to keep going. I was not aware of how my mind jumped from one thing to the next and how there was never any respite from this. As I practised more, I realised how I’d never really allowed myself time to deeply rest. I saw how burnt out I was trying to keep up with everyone else and how this was causing regular break downs and a constantly feeling of not being able to cope with life. For the first time I gave myself permission to say no to things. I realised I was not lazy or weak because I allowed myself time to rest and recharge.
   

   Yin yoga has had a big impact on the way I practise other forms of movement too. In the past, my vinyasa practice would have been faster, less controlled with more striving to achieve certain shapes. Now, I take my time. There is so much we can tune into and notice by simply slowing down. The attention to detail allows me to find more stability and effortlessness even in challenging shapes. When I run, I now do so without music or headphones in. I listen to the sounds around me, I enjoy the rhythmic nature of my running pace, I don’t track my runs - so it becomes more about the present moment experience than achieving a certain time or pace. When I do resistance training I am more present with that experience - how does my body feel? Am I struggling? Can I find more ease? I feel that this ability to pay attention no matter what kind of movement I am doing means less chance of injury as I am listening to the warning signs the body often gives when I am pushing too hard.
   

2. Enjoying silence and stillness.
   Yin yoga has been a door into quieter, more subtle practices. To be able to sit still and be in a pose has been a wonderful revelation! The sensation of stretching allowed me to stay longer in a pose compared with sitting for meditation. Then, over time I was able to observe my experience in the pose, build greater attention and awareness and this has led me to explore many more subtle practices including pranayama and meditation. I recently attended my first silent retreat and felt completely at home in the silence, something I couldn’t have imagined possible before I started practising yin.
   

3. Lesson of impermanence.
   A yin pose has a beginning, a middle and an end. We start by finding our edge and then commit to staying in the pose. At the beginning I often find there is resistance, it takes the mind some time to settle. By using the breath as an anchor for my attention, I observe the sensations that are arising and fading. By staying in the pose for a few minutes we have time to actually see the lesson of impermanence in action. Sensations that seem solid to begin with actually dissolve and reappear, rise and fall. The middle of the pose allows us to observe all that is happening without judging or reacting. There is magic here! Learning to let go and surrender to life. And finally, the end of the pose. There may have been moments of discomfort but now it’s over. This same lesson can be applied to our life - there will be times of discomfort, challenge, loss and grief. But life will continue and we can take great comfort in knowing “this too shall pass” at times of distress.
   

4. Less is more.
   In a yin class we practise only a few poses but by spending longer in each of the poses, we get to experience greater depth. There is so much we can notice by staying a few minutes instead of a few breaths. Our habitual patterns of wanting to get to the end or achieve a particular shape are revealed. Our culture and society measures success against our output. This focus on the result, rather than the effort means that many of us get caught in the trap of looking for shortcuts or quick fixes. By doing this we often only skim the surface and our experience of life can feel very shallow.
   
   We live in a culture that encourages us to collect and consume. Whether it’s material items, academic achievements, physical challenges or financial abundance - more is considered better. Learning about aparigraha - non attachment and the Taoist perspective of simplicity has hugely impacted my day to day life. Instead of mindlessly consuming, I have learnt how to choose more carefully. I’ve become more intentional about the possessions I keep in my house, asking myself the question “Does this bring value to my life?” I take time to consider before purchasing new things - a helpful practice for me has been to wait a week before buying something. I try to be mindful about how much information I consume each day and how that information is reaching me. I no longer have a television and I have all notifications turned off on my phone. I have stopped needing background noise in the house - I was surprised to find the silence incredibly spacious!
   

5. Being comfortable in the uncomfortable.
   Life is going to challenge us and inevitably there are going to be moments of pain, suffering, grief and sadness. Learning how to stay in a yin pose that is uncomfortable has helped me immensely in overcoming my fear of discomfort. There have been many times in my life where I have been so desperate to escape the discomfort that I will do anything to distract myself from it! Running away from uncomfortable conversations, drinking and taking drugs to escape the constant judging mind, binge eating to escape emotional pain, mindlessly binge watching Netflix to escape the pain of existence. My tolerance for discomfort was very low! Dragon pose was so intense for me when I first started practising, but that intensity taught me a lot about staying with discomfort. I realised that if I could overcome my desire to move out of the pose and just stay with the breath, the mind started to accept it. If I could take on the role of the witness, observing sensations without labelling or judging them, the experience wasn’t as bad. I could stay longer that I had thought. Overtime, poses like dragon that were so incredibly challenging to begin with became quite enjoyable. This opened my mind to more possibilities - the possibility of feeling more spacious in my body and the possibility of feeling more free in my mind.
   

6. Acceptance and compassion.
   In a world where there is constant pressure to “be someone” or “achieve something” yin yoga is a great comfort as it genuinely allows us to show up as we are. If I am feeling tired or sad, happy or grateful, irritable or angry I can still show up to practice. Self acceptance has been a huge part of my journey. Paying attention long enough to realise how harsh the inner critic really was. To notice that the person who was causing most of the harm to me was me! Yin yoga taught me how to sit with that negative self talk without identifying with it. It taught me how to practise compassion moment by moment by accepting what arises within me.
   
   I also learned metta meditation - offering phrases of loving kindness to myself and others. I like integrating this into my yin practice. I like to repeat “May I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be at peace and may my practice help me to develop these qualities” at the start of practice. Then, later on I will send these phrases to a friend or family member and at the end of practice before savasana I will send these phrases to all beings. This has helped me soften the harshness of the mind and become more accepting of myself and others. I find I come back to these phrases regularly throughout my days and they help me immensely.
   

7. Appreciating our uniqueness.
   I have been incredibly lucky to have practised yin yoga with some brilliant teachers. These teachers have all been very different. They each bring their own flavour to the practice. They each draw from the philosophies and practices that inspire them and that means that I’ve been exposed to many different ways of practising. I love that within this world of yin yoga we are encouraged to show up as ourselves. I love that the practice encourages us to explore options but also gives us the space to skip poses or practices that don’t feel right for us. I love that we are guided to use support and that isn’t a lesser way of practising (in fact, we can gain so much from having support in yoga and in life!) Yin yoga has helped me to appreciate my unique body - one that I hated so much for so many years. It’s helped me to realise how lucky I am to have a body that moves, and that can hear, see, touch, taste and smell. It’s helped me to make gratitude for my body a practice and that gratitude grows in strength every time I step onto my mat.
   

8. Learning how to listen deeply.
   Listening is a skill that is becoming increasingly rare in the modern world. I didn’t realise how bad I was at listening - yin yoga highlighted this to me pretty quickly! Our attention spans are under attack - being bombarded with adverts every few seconds on phone apps, social media, radio, TV; reels and YouTube shorts - holding our attention for only 90 seconds or less before jumping onto the next video; Netflix releasing shows that are designed to be watched whilst using another device. Our poor brains are really never getting a break and this means that when we are asked to focus on just one thing for an extended period of time, many of us really struggle. Whether it is observing the breath, noticing the sensations in the body or repeating a mantra over and over in our mind, we are really learning how to pay attention to just one thing. This makes us much better at listening - listening to our body and tuning into our inner wisdom. Listening to the mind and discerning what is useful and what is just noise. And when we step off our mat and into our life, we become better at listening to our friends, our family and our colleagues. When we enjoy a meal with our family, instead of being glued to the TV, glancing at our phones or planning our response, we can be fully present with them. We can listen and be truly interested in what they have to say.  In the modern world, the gift of attention is the greatest gift of all.
   

9. Magic of life!
   In the quiet space of yin yoga, I accessed a deep sense of peace and tranquility that I had never experienced before. In this space, a natural appreciation for the gift of life arose within me. I have become more sensitive to the awe and beauty that is always present. Experiencing this has encouraged me to return to the practice time and time again. Attending a 5 day yin course in 2024, a silent retreat in 2026 and the most recent 9 day yin training I have just returned from are all experiences that allowed me to go deeper into this slower, softer and more compassionate way of living. Having these deeper experiences and then also learning to integrate the practices into daily life have made daily living much more enjoyable.
   

10. Returning home.
    Yin yoga has helped me realise that I am enough as I am and that I can step off the hamster wheel of always striving for more. I believe that when we feel enough, it allows us to be more accepting of others too and therefore more able to live in harmony within the world. I feel that the practice has helped me find my centre and no matter what is going on in my life and the world around me, I have place of stability and safety to return to. It has helped me to connect with my inner world and the yin like qualities of quiet, stillness and gentleness. I genuinely can’t imagine my life without yin now and am so happy that I found this practice and am also able to share it with others.