This was my first experience of the power of Yin and it opened me up to some fundamental realizations – we are great collectors of things, as we age our lives get infinitely more complex and cluttered and we lose the simplicity and awareness of childhood. We gather possessions in our homes, people in our phone book, memories both good & bad in our minds, and every feeling & emotion is laid down in our bodies. They reside there deep in our tissue and deep in our subtle mind, causing blockages to the flow of energy through our beings, ultimately making us inflexible. We are hindered in our ability to thrive with this stiffness; time passes much faster as we become stiffer, we are too preoccupied with the blockages that consciously and unconsciously limit us. We struggle to give ourselves fully to the present.
To me Yin is the supreme art of letting go of the blockages. If our mind were a house, a dynamic Yoga practice is the equivalent of tidying and running the hoover across the floors before a friend comes over for dinner. However Yin Yoga is taking the whole weekend to sort out the years of junk that has accumulated in the cupboard under the stairs. The meditative qualities of the practice take you into that blissful space of the subtle mind, away from the chatter of the conscious brain. In this dream-like state you can fully explore your mind-body connection on its most powerful level, discovering what your conscious awareness failed to realize was even there.
This is the place where you can drop all agendas. With your eyes closed, being completely held by the earth there is no need to be anything or anyone else, there is no ego attached to the practice, you are just simply being, yielding without forcing, exploring without seeking. Inner conflict, judgement, attachment needn’t apply here and you can just observe. Observe how the energies move through you, where they magnetize towards, and where they avoid. Your rational mind can be quietened, and you can just listen. Listen to your being, listen to the Earth as it holds you, listen to the energies around you as they brush lightly on your skin.
Before I know it the instructor coaxes us back into the room. Warmth infuses my whole body. I don’t feel renewed, I don’t feel reborn, I feel like I have returned to the true nature of what I always was. Natural, organic, exactly how the universe intended me to be, weightless and unrestricted. As I rise to a seated position and open my eyes, I can tell from the blissful look on the faces of the people around me that they feel the same way.
They are all so utterly beautiful in their serenity.
An uncontrollable smile creeps across my face.
