Sometimes you just gotta put a little yin into your practice

If you’ve ever tried yin yoga you’ll know that even though it’s extremely slow moving, it’s one of the hardest forms of yoga to do. Yin yoga is a series of poses (seated) that are held for about five minutes at a time.

Here are some examples of yin yoga poses (all of the poses shown here are held for about 5-10 minutes each).

While in most other forms of yoga poses are held not only physically and mindfully but with the use of bondas (or firmness of certain areas of the body). The difference in yin is that instead of placing ourselves into a pose and mindfully remaining strong, we relax into the pose. For example pigeon pose (or swan pose in yin yoga) usually requires us to firm our back leg, firm our front foot activating the front leg, and breathing into the pose for five to ten breaths, in yin your feet are relaxed, and while your thighs and hips will not be at first (they might be tight or uncomfortable) the point of yin yoga is to find relaxation in the pose, or to find comfort in the discomfort. If you’ve ever tried sitting in one position (cross-legged even) for an extended period of time, not moving, focusing on your breath, and trying not to allow your brain to wander, you will know that yin yoga is not fun, not fun at all.

Here are my reasons why:

1. It’s uncomfortable most of the time.
– sitting with this discomfort is torture at times. In yin you are asked to stay in a pose for sometimes ten minutes. Most of the poses are hip openers and are meant not only to get to the deep connective tissues but to also deal with why we are tight in the first place (physically and emotionally).

2. It’s difficult not to wander
– In my first class I swore the instructor (a good friend of mine) forgot to tell us to get out of the pose, I looked up, to see if I had not heard her, or if she had wandered off in her thoughts like I had. She hadn’t, it was meant to last a tortuous amount of time. I even had the classic Elaine Benes freak out on the subway (Seinfeld episode) except on my yoga mat.

3. A lot of emotions come up
By sitting with ourselves for that amount of time and accepting whatever happens – be it an Elaine Benes rant, crying, anger, making plans in our heads, hating yin yoga – without judgements allows us to eventually let go. Granted this might not happen the first time you try it, but it will, if you can gather up the guts to try yin yoga again. (It took me over a year to try it again).

There were many reasons why it took me so long to try Yin yoga again, one of them being it is not fun at all, and another being I wasn’t ready to see yoga as physically passive yet emotionally juicy. If you follow any yoga blogs, or webpages, you’ll notice that many people try to define yoga –

yoga is not a work out
Yoga is a work out
Core yoga/butt yoga/weight loss yoga
if you don’t sweat it’s not yoga
yoga is a sport
yoga is a spiritual experience

I used to define yoga, and I still catch myself doing so at times. But something I have come to realize recently is that none of these statements are true. In this last year I have strived to try as many forms of yoga as I could. And because of that I have learned that there is no one way to do yoga, and you can’t categorize it as good or bad, authentic or inauthentic, because the reality is yoga is a lot of things. On any given day yoga can be spiritual, it can be rejuvinating, it can be a work out, and it can also be yin. Yoga is what you need it to be.

Today I needed it to be yin. My emotions have been crazy these last few days (mostly due to my cycle but also the many changes, and changes within changes, taking place). In one minute I could be a-ok and in the next I could be completely PMSing, or panicking in my head about the lack of time, organization of the military – you name it, I’ve panicked about it in the last few days. I couldn’t concentrate, I felt lost and stressed and I was beginning to have no trust in any of my abilities. And so I decided to sit with myself this morning. Feel the burn and force myself to just be.

That’s what yin does: there is no flow to keep up with, no mastering of a pose, there is just you and your joints. There are no adustments to make you seem bendy, you can’t pretend that you don’t have tight hips, or that you can do wide legged forward fold (seated), you are forced to accept these things, and you see by letting go, that these things don’t really matter because if you were to define yoga it wouldn’t be a work out or a spiritual experience, it would just be yoga, yoga is in everything, in every movement, any BODY can do yoga, and when you finally see that, you realize yoga is just connection, union. When you finally allow yourself to let go in a yin pose you realize that even though you can’t even partially do turtle pose (me this morning) the fact that you sat with it and let yourself experience the moment (cry), accept it, but not let it define you, you’ve done it, you’ve welcomed yoga into your life.

For me Yin yoga is about connecting with yourself, allowing yourself to feel whatever it is you need to feel. When sitting in an uncomfortable position for five minutes you have no choice but to eventually feel, eventually get to what is hidden deep in your tissues. A year ago this is definitely not how I would have defined yin yoga, because back then yoga was different in my life. Don’t let others tell you what yoga is, or who can do yoga, let it be what it is for you in this moment, and one day you’ll find yourself sitting in a random pose letting yourself cry it out and you’ll see just how mystifying yoga can be.

The scariness of goodbye

What scares me more than anything is that every time he leaves, it gets harder and harder to say good bye.

I thought our first good bye was hell. We had been dating for six months, and he went off to Afghanistan. I had no idea what it meant to have someone you cared about in that kind of environment. I had no idea what my every day life would be like. Would I be able to function knowing he was in constant danger? Would we be ok as a couple having spent six months together and now six months apart? Would anyone understand what my life had turned into?

Obviously we got through it. And there have been many more good byes since. But each time we say it, each time we both look at each other knowing, it’s time, my heart aches.

This is because, I know this is less time together in the amount of time we have been given in this life. I know there will be nights that I won’t be able to sleep and I’ll watch episode after episode of Seinfeld hoping to either laugh or begin dreaming. I know there will be moments in the morning, when I first open my eyes, and I will have forgotten that I am alone, and slowly as I turn to hug him I’ll remember he is gone and the sinking feeling will quickly take the place of happiness, and I won’t want to get out of bed.

Today as he left, I realized that it was harder. As I watched him prepare and pack his car I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful he is, how smart and wonderful. I wanted to implant the memory of him preparing his motorcycle on the trailer, in all of his manliness, the man I love, I wanted to remember each word, each breath, each blink of his eyes, and more than anything I didn’t want to have to say good bye.

Of course, on my good days when time apart is a far away event I’d tell you that the time away is great, i focus on my own things, we miss each other, and the homecoming is beyond words. We remember the wonderful things that we can’t live without, when on a regular day these same qualities are easily forgotten. We grow as a couple and become strong under dyer circumstances of being apart, but it hurts to see him go. It hurts to say good bye.

The realization that it gets harder and harder each time scares me so much. I think this is because I know what it’s like to say the final good bye to someone you love, and if it hurts knowing I will see him again, what will that feel like? I don’t even want to go there.

Today, before he left, I had a meeting at work, and as I sat there, I realized the time I had told J I would be home had passed. I panicked. I tried my hardest to keep my cool (my boss was talking very slowly) but inside me all I could think about was I have to go home and say goodbye. After the meeting was finally over, I rushed home (or I should say tried, isn’t it always the case when you desperately want to get somewhere everything and everyone gets in your way?) Thankfully, I didn’t miss him. However, the thought of J leaving without us saying good bye to one and other was just unthinkable. I am sure for him, he would have shrugged it off, assumed I got caught up in the meeting, and he’d see me in a few weeks, not the same for me.

I must remember to be grateful for these feelings, because they are the few of many indications of how wonderful our relationship is. I remember a time in my recent past believing I would never find anything like this, and J has surpassed so many expectations ( I guess I should include myself in there since without me there would be no relationship.) We often take the people in our lives for granted, and these good byes, while are not very pleasant as far as my heart is concerned, remind me how lucky we are. This is not good bye, and until I see you again, you are in my heart and I will cherish you always.

Please, for me, remember the many things you love about someone in your life, and tell them, because for awhile I won’t be able to, and if I could I’d write it in the sky.