Yin is one of the practises that has helped me be calm in the face of so many adversities, and it helped me heal from the after effects of trauma, it has helped me build resilience, calmness, inner peace, so much that I want the World to know about it. 

It is one of the practises that I believe is the antidote to stress, anxiety, this busy World we find ourselves in. I am super passionate about it. 

In Episode 13 of the SLOW DOWN Live Deeply Podcast, I illustrate how we can either sit with ourselves and look at our stuff, or we can stuff it down, let if fester, let it stagnate and cause emotional and physical imbalances. 

Link to SPOTIFY

Link to APPLE

In the short term it feels better not to look at how we are feeling, to stuff it all down. Long term, it is harder to bear. So now, I really allow myself to feel, to feel deeply, in order to live deeply. 

I had a really brave student, I say had, because she doesn’t need to come to YIN yoga classes anymore with me. (That is the aim as a yoga teacher to not be needed.) This beautiful soul came because she had suffered immense grief by losing a baby. She is amazing, and has turned that grief into action and now works with the Hope charity that supports women who have had stillborns, or lost a baby in pregnancy. 

This soul, came to YIN every week to feel her feelings, she didn’t run away from them, she looked them straight in the eye, she sobbed most weeks, this allowed her tears to move, the grief to move and when she got pregnant she stopped coming.

She moved her own energy by sitting with herself in a safe space. I was so grateful to hold that space for her, and to see her bravely come week after week. That is why I do what I do, to provide the space for students to do their own work, with the teachings that have been passed down to me.  

When we hold onto tears, it gets stored in the body and can come out as physical discomfort, illness or emotional imbalances, low mood, depression, anxious feelings, the list goes on..… 

When you first start letting the feelings come up, when you start to acknowledge them after you have been holding them in for so long, it can be so intense. It literally can feel like it is too much. You might think that you can't cope with it. 

Bravery is doing something that feels scary to you, It is not doing something that other people feel scared of and you don't. Our life is relative to ourselves. 

You can...you can soften, you can ask for help.  For me, true bravery is vulnerability. It is the ability to let the feelings flow, and to not ignore them and carry on regardless which I feel society programs us to do. 

I feel the tide changing though now. This makes me happy. 

I have also met souls who tell me that they don’t like yin, because it makes them feel angry, or makes them cry.  They come every week now!

All the anger and frustration that they are holding onto, that they don’t express, all the times they don’t think about themselves and express what is upsetting them is being moved up and out of the body. In those stormy moments we feel in YIN, we breathe and we learn that it passes. Or the tears, let them flow, water by its very nature should flow, not to stagnate. 

When we don’t let the feelings flow, this is what I term the warrior defensive mode. "I'm not going to even look my feelings. I'm not going to allow my feelings to flow, I think I will just stuff them down. "

I know this well!!! This is the subconscious. It tells you to just stuff your feelings deep inside, so no one can see them,  where you can't see them. 

It whispers…If we can't see them, they're not there. I promise you they are still there, we need a free flow of energy for the body to be well, that emotion that's stored, there will fester and stagnate. 

When you're holding on. So tightly to all that energy, there's no space.

When we start to journey inwards, that's when the feelings come up, that's when we have the opportunity to heal and grow.

When we are full of fear, loss, sadness, despair, it is all inside you.Think of yourself for a moment like a money jar, and all these emotions are stones. Where's the space for the money to go in the good stuff, the energy, there isn't any.

Yin yoga is all floor based, you sit with yourself and place your body into shapes supported or unsupported. It is amazing if you are low on energy, it helps the feelings and energy find a freer flow. 

 Sometimes when you're going through something, you need to be in warrior mode for a bit, it helps us cope and do what we need to do at the time. But don't be in there for too long, open the heart and soften. I know from experience and from hearing my students experiences that yoga helps shift the energy. Sometimes dramatic , sometimes subtle. I have cried through so many yoga classes myself, I welcome those classes I am grateful for them. In that class I have healed a little I have moved on from the past, I have opened my heart a little more.

If we are hanging with the defensive warrior mode of …I’m okay, I am not going to talk about it. I know it’s not  going to go away, I’ve got to stay with this. This is what I have been dealt, this is my lot. We have lost our autonomy, we are not taking responsibility, we are literally programming ourselves to feel like this. 

There is another way, you could be a freedom warrior, the brave one who is willing to look at their stuff and heal. Bravery is doing something that feels intense that feels scary to you. It is not doing something that other people feel scared of and you don’t. Our life is relative to ourselves. 

I talked recently about jumping out of the plane years ago, I was terrified, I can't tell you how terrified I was, but I did it anyway. It was amazing.  I did it scared… To some people, jumping out a plane doesn’t scare them so are they brave? It is our relative experience. 

Fear tends to be old stuck energy attached to a past experience, something unpleasant happened and we don’t want to feel that way again. When we start to journey into it, that's when the feelings come up, that’s when we have the opportunity for growth. 

Journaling prompts:-.

What do you want to do that scares you?

What do you avoid because of feelings, fear, grief, sadness, loss, self protection?

What have you been told in the past about that feeling?

What would it feel like if you did that thing without any fear or feeling from the past?

When we have these strong feelings they form, this protective bubble or boundary around us, for me, that feels like loss of freedom. When I didn't look at my feelings, I was just stuck in a cycle of doing, instead of being and discovering, I was more in fear than joy. I was more in sadness and despair than in happiness and experiencing life.

I wasn't living deeply. 

If we don't slow down and take the time and the effort to look at ourselves we stay in this hamster wheel, going round and round and round, it's exhausting and it can get boring. There is so much goodness possible for us just with a change or perspective.  It might just mean that you need to take that jump or to do that work, to really look or to do the healing work that is  going to make you cry.

We will look at crying in the next blog

Sending you so much love 

K

 PS: links to yin classes and my membership are int he sidebar, and also my YOU ARE ENOUGH online program is amazing at guiding you through the inner healing work.