Tag Archives: taking a break

Savasana: A Love Story

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savasana a love story

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to talk to some Yoga Basics students about coming to my classes. Here’s what I told them.

Savasana: A Love Story

During the first year or so of going to yoga classes around town, I fell in love. That overwhelming feeling of I-just-can’t-get-enough kind of love. An obsession, really.

At the beginning, I didn’t know its name. I called it “that lying down part at the end”. My secret wish was that each class I took  would end with “that lying down part”.

I fell in love with Savasana.

What’s to love?

I loved that feeling of my body letting go of tension, releasing the urge to work,  and falling into relaxation and rest at the end of class. Even if we only were there for a few minutes, that was the part I liked the most. I felt its power of rest like nothing I’d ever experienced, except maybe for an actual nap.

After each class, my mind felt calmer, my body relaxed and for a brief time, I felt peaceful.

For a super Type-A, pitta-deranged, smart Alec with amazing perfectionist tendencies, peaceful was something I’d never felt before.

And I liked it.

So I kept going back, week after week, hoping that we would end with “that lying down part”.

It surprises me now – a decade plus past my first class – that not one time, in any class I took that first year, did any teacher mention that every class ends with “that lying down part”.

Imagine my delight when I finally asked someone and they explained that EVERY yoga class ends that way!

To this day I love Savasana.

In fact, I’ve dedicated my yoga teaching to the lying down part! We pretty much do that the whole time in my classes. And while, yes, it can be hard to do – it is worth it.

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Interested in starting a love affair with “that lying down part”?  Check out my class schedule and come rest with me.

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What yoga pose would you write a love story about?

Photo credit: Robert Bejil Photography on Flickr (cc)

That Time I Knew I Was Going To The Nervous Hospital: AKA My First Restorative Yoga Class

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A person who recently took a restorative yoga class with me told the owner of the studio where I work that my class was hard.

Like, really hard.

Surprisingly hard.

When she asked why, the response she got may surprise you.

It was the quiet.

The quiet was the hard part.

The doing nothing while laying down with nothing to do was the hard part.

I was taken aback for a minute when she told me and then I remembered my first restorative yoga class.

Picture this: My body was supported in legs up the wall (just like the picture above), I was carefully covered with a soft, clean smelling blanket, my eye pillow rested over my eyes and then BAM!

No joke, within five minutes I truly believed I was going to have to live in the nervous hospital. I was clearly insane. The voices in my head got louder and louder the longer I stayed still.  I kept wondering when the men in the padded van were going to come wrap my clearly crazy self up in a straight jacket and take me out of there.

My mind wouldn’t quit.

The deep dark hidden secrets I successfully avoided by staying busy had finally caught up to me when my body got quiet.

Basically, my mind kicked my ass for an hour and a half while I laid there in the quiet waiting for the padded room dudes to come get me.

Needless to say,  It was quite a workout.

So I get it.

The quiet IS the hard part.

Sometimes I forget that laying down quietly with your body fully supported can be difficult.

I get it.

It clearly happens to us all.

I also get that sometimes we need to challenge ourselves to do hard things that are good for us.

Recently the New York Times published an article about how if you Relax! You’ll Be More Productive that has been widely across social media. I share it here with you because it perfectly illustrates my point about how lying down often, taking naps, taking vacations and breaks from your online world are hard, but totally worthwhile.

This gist of the article is exactly what I’ve said in my classes for years:

The less you do sometimes directly relates to how much more you can do other times.

So this, friends, is my invitation to you. Tuesday nights (and the first Sunday of each month) I teach how to live in the quiet. A nice supportive place to make friends with your inner critics.

Join me? It’s All Yoga in Sacramento, CA. Public and classes are available.

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Have you ever tried restorative yoga? Do you have a regular practice? What’s your experience?

All Together Now….A Long, Steady Exhale

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Michelle wrote an excellent piece about breathing called Epidemic Inhale. Please go read it.

No, really.

Go.

Read.

It.

Ok, while you were there did you follow her directions for a long, slow, steady exhale?

Feels good, doesn’t it?

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This is what yoga is for me now: one giant exhale.

A time and a place to just LET.IT.BE.

Reminders to pause, yawn, and be conscious of my breathing and how my body feels.

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It hasn’t always been this way.

I’m pretty sure most people are thinking I’m making funny shapes with my body when I’m “at yoga” and for a long time that is exactly what I did. The more difficult the class, the better.

I was ‘doing’ yoga, damnit.

But now, I’m focusing on the not doing. Letting things go. Asking myself what my body really needs in this moment.

More often than not, my body is craving rest.

And exhaling.

As a culture we spend so much going, going, going. Always pushing forward and racing from one project, meeting, soccer game to the next.  I am totally do this too. Even as I sit here with seven open tabs on my computer – including three email accounts, Twitter and Facebook.

So I rest.

You can too.

Ready?

All together now:

A long, steady exhale.