Surrender with Yin

The most challenging part of yoga is not about touching your toes or balancing on one leg. It can occur in the simplest poses - a child's pose, a deep stretch, even in savasana the final relaxation. It is about surrender.

If COVID has taught us anything, it is that so much of our life is beyond our control. To make ourselves feel safe, to have some ground beneath our feet when all is swirling around us, we tighten, close down and contract. This gives a perception of control and holding onto something...but instead it does the opposite. 

When we surrender, we do so by softening, opening and leaning in rather than hardening and protecting. We open our heart and bodies to what is present right here and now, accepting what is, rather than how we prefer it to be inside our head. The disconnect between what is and what we want, causes suffering.

In Yin yoga, we are opening our body, mind and heart to really experience the moment, even when there is discomfort. The breath guides our surrender. Each inhale is an invitation to open and create space, each exhale allows us to let go a little more.

When we surrender, we open rather than closing, we feel deep into our connection to self, to others, to our humanness which cannot escape suffering. When we practice this each time in the safety of the yoga mat, we begin to try this out in everyday life. We begin to feel less separate from life itself. The paradox is that when we let go, we don't lose control but gain a deeper understanding of how the world is and how to live more comfortably in our own skin. We attune ourselves to the flow of life itself.

Yin asks us to let go of:

• tightness (we allow gravity to open our body)
• time (sometimes poses are held for a number of minutes)
• habitual tendencies for distraction (we commit to remain still and quiet)
• indulging in thoughts (we train with mindfulness techniques)
• control (developing trust in a teacher to guide you through)

The reward is a renewal of Self, a cultivated sense of harmony, a spacious body and mind, a connected heart.