The Mind in Yin Yoga

Today I wanted to talk about the mind and how that comes up in Yin Yoga.

 

And this will probably be more of a general overview.

And sort of like beginner level, things that we can do with our mind, I’m sure later on in the pod, I will have some more in-depth techniques and, more subtle techniques that I can share but for now. I  want to keep it pretty simple. And the reason I want to keep it pretty simple is because a lot of you are yin yoga teachers.

And you’re probably teaching a mixed-level group, you’re probably teaching kind of the general population. Some people may have experience with things like yin and meditation and then people who don’t so we’ll keep it simple for that reason. Or if you’re listening to this and you’re not a yin yoga teacher then you may fall into that category of fairly new.

So we’ll keep this fairly basic and fairly simple, but still with lots of helpful tips and hints.

But before we get into some techniques that we can use with the mind, I want to talk about a couple of other things that can come up just briefly when we’re talking about the mind, but I’m not going to go into them super in depth because we’ll have future episodes about those.

One of those is the role of emotions. And so sometimes we can see emotions come up in class, either in ourselves, or if you’re a teacher with your students, and I’ll talk a bit more about that in a different episode. And then the other thing that can come up often is a bit of a trauma response.

And by often, I don’t mean this is going to happen in every class, but that again deserves its whole own special episode or several could be a small series for that matter. And so when I talk today I’m talking about the mind and I talk about fidgeting. I just want to be clear that there is fidgeting as in I’m bored, but there’s also fidgeting that could be a trauma response.

And so today in this episode, I’m going to deal with fidgeting as if it’s not a trauma response because we’ll talk about that in a different episode later on in the future.

So the mind and yin yoga. So before we get into all of the ways that this can show up, or at least some of the ways, I’m sure I don’t even know all of the ways this can show up and some of the techniques that we can use both for our practice and both with the students as well.

To help them with the mind. I want to share a brief story with you. When I was a budding yoga teacher, I had just finished my teacher training and I was getting ready to teach. And I was so excited. It started becoming apparent to me because I had read things like the yoga sutras that, um, meditation was missing from my practice.

And I would bet this is probably the case with most yoga teachers. They’re much better at practicing the [00:04:00] asanas or the physical shapes than they are sitting their butt on a cushion and consciously, deliberately taking that time to sit in meditation. Because teachers, after all, are just a reflection of.

The rest of humanity. Now, that being said, it became really clear though, that if I wanted to look at my yoga as not just a teaching practice, which it was, but also as a part of my lifestyle, part of my spiritual practice, part of my path, that meditation was going to have to be added in, right? It’s all fun and games to make shapes with our bodies.

But if you’re making all these shapes with your body all the time, but you’re never dealing with your mind, then you’re missing At least 50%, if not, maybe I would say 70 % of the equation, right? So originally the asana, the physical postures in yoga traditions, were designed to help us with our body.

to get a body that feels comfortable and strong and open enough to be able to sit and do some of these more contemplative or devotional or mindfulness practices. So to leave the mind and meditation out when I was a budding teacher was starting to feel like I was looking at yoga as an I’m doing air quotes for those of you just listening workout.

And really, I didn’t believe that was the case. I believe that yoga practice is a work in. So this is where I was sitting at. I’m a new teacher. The program that I took was Iyengar-based, meaning all the teachers, except for one teacher. It wasn’t an Iyengar certification program, but that was the foundation of the program.

So we’d spent very little time on meditation. And to be honest, in all of my time studying. In Iyenger circles, it was rarely focused on other aspects of quieter practices, where there’s a big component of Pranayama, for example, in Iyengar yoga. I would say some of the best Pranayama classes that I’ve ever been to have been Iyengar teachers who have done them, but there wasn’t a focus on meditation.

So it felt like this was lacking. So this is where I’m at. I’m a new teacher. I’m well aware that meditation is part of the deal. And so I’m out searching for some meditation classes in the city that I lived in, which is probably the case in most cities that have some size to them. I started, Googling meditation classes in Calgary, and I found a few Buddhist temples.

All of the meditation classes that I found that were offered to the public were in the Buddhist tradition. There was nothing else at the time available. And I didn’t have a problem with that because at the time I was kind of a closet Buddhist anyway, so it suited me just fine. It was kind of a nice way to dip my toe into studying this deeper under the guise of meditation.

So that’s what I did. I Googled, I found a temple and I went to several different styles of Buddhist meditation. There was one lineage I went to for probably about six months, then I realized quite quickly that I wasn’t going to be able to get any of the deeper teachings. , from that particular lineage that, um, the monks, all followed one particular monk.

And if it wasn’t in this one monk’s books, they didn’t have any answers on things. I also didn’t like the fact that we all just sat around in chairs and it was guided the whole time because I was interested in learning the real deal. Like I wanted to get a cushion, sit on the floor and like deal with this.

So I was with them for a few months and then I went somewhere else and I went to another temple and this temple was not a good fit either. They separated the men from the women because it was a monastic tradition. They have monks and nuns there, but they had us. Lay people sitting back to back, we’re back facing each other.

Men facing one wall, women facing another wall. They gave you no instructions. You sat for a while and then you got up and you did walking meditation, but they’re walking meditation was more like let’s run around in circles. So that was not a good fit. And then I went to probably about two or three more different beginner meditation courses or meditation nights that were open to beginners.

The whole time at each one of these places, I kept coming into the same issue. I would sit, I was fairly comfortable sitting on the floor, although not for an extended period at the time. And so I would sit down on the floor, I would sit on my cushion and I would close my eyes and I would try to focus on my breath or whatever it was, whatever the technique was and bammo off, my [00:09:00] mind goes.

Some kind of circus going on in my head or a soap opera going on in my mind. And it was very frustrating to, you know, I was looking around and everybody else seemed pretty chill. And here I am with this drama going on in my mind. And so I thought, well, okay, this just isn’t the style of meditation.

That’s a good fit for me. So I’ll keep looking. So I kept looking and I kept looking and I went to different classes in different temples and different teachers. And then finally, I ended up with what I now would, if I was still living in the city, I would still be studying with this teacher today.

This was an option. I found what I consider my teacher and in the second class, I think it was a six-week beginner meditation series. So the second week he said, and if when you sit and you try to keep your mind focused, your mind [00:10:00] goes off into thinking and planning and all the things that’s normal.

Every human has this experience. And I remember thinking, shut the front door. Like, how did I not know this? So this whole time I’d been hopping from one temple to another temple from one style to another style. I was looking for the magic pill. I was looking for the magic meditation pill that would be the best fit for my particular personality so that I could stop thinking.

This is what I had in my mind. And now this teacher is telling me that thinking is part of the process. And that it’s normal and that it’s human and that everybody else in this room is also thinking this was like a huge awakening for me. So I say this and I tell you this story because I think that this is the primary misconception about quieter practices like meditation and yoga.

And if you’re right now thinking, what does this have to do with yin yoga? One of yin yoga’s nicknames is the meditative yoga. So if you didn’t know that. Welcome to the club. And so just knowing that all of the other humans in the room were also dealing with their mind and that this wasn’t like a flaw in me, that I was human, and that everybody was having a little bit of trouble, or a lot of trouble, depending on the day, keeping their mind focused.

And this was a huge aha moment for me. So this is why I bring this story in because I feel like in yoga and meditation circles, and whether you’re a student or a teacher, either, you may have had this misconception. We think that the point of a meditative practice is to stop thinking. I’m going to say that again.

So often there’s the misconception that in a meditative practice, like yin yoga or a seated formal meditation, the point of the practice is to stop thinking. And that is not the case. In fact, for most humans, the best way to ensure that you will be thinking is to try to stop thinking. Okay. So say what you mean we’re not trying to stop thinking. Yes, exactly. What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to harness the mind so that it isn’t going all over the place. So, to reach a meditative state, first, our mind has to be able to stay focused and concentrated and centred on one thing. And that is what most of us are practicing when we say we’re practicing meditation.

Concentration is the entry point to being able to do practices like more wide-open mindfulness or to reach a meditative state. If our mind can’t stay focused on one thing, that’s where we start. So that’s what we’ll be talking about today with ourselves or with our students. For those of you who are teachers, how, when we’re practicing yin, can we harness our mind and gently direct it back to one thing? Now that being said, that doesn’t mean that’s, this is the only way to practice. This is just the way that I find is the most helpful for beginners or even just mixed level, yoga classes. Also, I find that for my practice, this is often the most helpful simply because my brain may be busy when I settle into my practice.

So I’m going to talk about some techniques and things like that, that we can use. But the first thing I want to talk about, especially I’m now speaking to you, dear yoga teachers. Are you listening? [00:14:00] Please, when you are teaching a quieter practice like Yin, let your students know that if their mind is going on a tangent, this is human and normal.

When we normalize it, people relax. And I’ve seen people visibly relax when I let them know that, by the way, this is part of the deal. How you can do that. There are many ways I’m going to share how I do it. Please feel free to use that as inspiration. If you think it’ll be helpful, of course, don’t use my exact words.

You need to find your own words, but I will share some word-for-word things that I say to students when we’re in our practice. Why do we want to talk about the mind, dear Yin Yoga teacher, when we’re doing our Yin practice? Why would we want to talk about this? Well, here’s another little story for you.

When I was teaching at a local yoga therapy college I used to teach their 20-hour yin module so these people are all teachers. This is like, advanced teacher training. One of the teachers came up to me and said, thank you so much for talking about the mind and for letting us know that the mind was going to come up in our practice.

And she told me that she had been only to one other yin class. She didn’t, before this, she said she didn’t even like yin. She didn’t even want to do this module, but, they had to at the time it was included. And she was, it was the one she was not looking forward to because she had done one yin yoga class and the teacher just kind of moved into quiet and didn’t say anything.

about the practice, about how yin was different, about the mind, emotions, nothing, just kind of let them be there. Now there’s nothing wrong with that, if, especially if you’ve got a seasoned group, yinnies so [00:16:00] if you’ve got people that have been doing yin for a while, there’s probably going to be a lot more silence.

When you’re at a mixed-level drop-in class, I feels like, it’s kind of irresponsible to not at least in brief address the mind. So she thanked me for addressing the mind because she told me her first experience was when she was in this class, the teacher just kind of got them into the shapes and then just let them go, you know, do their own thing.

And what she felt was, of course, all of these thoughts coming up. Everything from the boredom and all the things and some emotions. Again, we’ll talk about emotions in a different episode. She felt these things coming up and it was probably the first time in her life that she wasn’t able to distract herself from these thoughts because she was still in a pose for three or five or however long minutes.

And so this for her was the first time that she was like. Almost affronted with her mind, and she didn’t have any techniques or skills or anything that she could use to help her with that.

And that’s why she had a horrible experience in that first yin class. And that’s why when she thought she had to do this in training, she was not looking forward to it. And something as simple as me addressing the mind, which again, I’m going to get into how I do that in just a moment, already made it easier for her to settle into the practice.

Simply because she knew what to expect, that this was normal, that she wasn’t alone, and some techniques that she could explore. Okay, so, this is why you might want to talk about the mind. I will give you one more small example before we get into the nuts and bolts of this. I know those of you who are teachers are like, okay, okay, let’s get to it already.

 Maybe a few months ago, I had somebody come into my class. It’s a drop-in class at a studio. Most of my classes are registered semesters, but I have, at this point, at the time of this recording, I have a couple that are drop-in, candlelight yin classes. And I always do a check-in with my students at the beginning of class, just to see where everybody’s at, how they’re feeling.

So it’s a simple, your name and one word or phrase to summarize how you are. Always with the option to pass. And so, the word of phrase could be grieving, sleepy hamstrings. It could be whatever they want to come up with. The reason I do this is because I want to know where people are at so I can adapt my lesson plan.

That’s probably a podcast for a different time. So we were going around and one of the women had said, I’m feeling anxious. And she said I’m feeling so anxious. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make it through the class. [00:19:00] I’m so glad she told me that because then I was able to speak to it.

Because the real problem wasn’t that she was anxious. The problem was that she thought that that wasn’t part of our human experience and that that wasn’t welcome in a practice, in a yoga practice. The real problem wasn’t that she was anxious. The real problem was she didn’t know what to do with that anxiety while she was practicing.

And so by me knowing that that’s how she’s feeling, I could address it verbally. I could talk about the mind and anxiety and I could give tools and techniques. So this is super important as a yoga teacher, don’t just show up for your class and guide them and then shut up and say nothing. Now, we also want to find a balance between not talking too much.

That’s an episode for another time, but I do think it’s super helpful to at least in brief address the mind. Now, if you know your students, you know that they have. A lot of experience. They’ve been with you for a while. It might be a super brief reminder like, Hey guys, don’t forget stuff’s going to come up in the mind.

This is normal. You’re human. We’re all in the same boat and here’s what we can do, right? Just super brief. If however, you’ve got a mixed-level class and lots of people that are new to Yin, you might want to talk about the mind in more depth. So here’s how I handled this in a practical sort of boots-on-the-ground, rubber-meets-the-road way for those of you who are teachers.

The first thing I do is, start in a position called constructive rest. I start all of my classes that way because of its relationship to our parasympathetic nervous system. So they’re all lying on their back with their knees bent, feet on the floor in various versions of props or no props, depending on their preference.

And when we’re about to get up and get into our first official yin shape, I will say, if you are [00:21:00] new to the practice of yin, if you’ve never, ever, ever done even one yin yoga class before, can you put one hand on your belly so that I know, and if you’ve done yin before, just let your hands rest at your sides.

Now, why would I do this? Two reasons, this gives people an anonymous way to let me know that they’re new, right, sitting everybody cross-legged and saying, Hey, raise your hand if you’re new. I mean, if somebody is even remotely shy, or they think they might be the only new person. Sometimes they won’t say that they are because they don’t want to be the focus of attention.

 But if they’re laying on their back and everyone’s eyes are closed and no one can see them but me, they’re much more comfortable. So put one hand on your belly if you’re new to this practice. And then as the teacher, I’m scanning the room to see how many hands are on bellies. If there are no hands-on bellies, I’m going to just do a very brief reminder about the mind.

If there’s a lot of hands-on bellies, I’m going to talk about it a lot more. I’m going to use my humour because that’s one of my secrets [00:22:00] superpowers as a teacher. And I’m going to be specific. And if it’s kind of 50-50, or, you know, a couple of new people, but not everybody knew, then I’ll talk about the mind in brief.

And then we’ll move on. So here’s how we do. So hands are on the belly. I look out. Let’s just say in this case, in this example, that it’s a pretty mixed group, maybe half people that are brand new, half people that aren’t. So as I get them into the shapes. I talk about how the challenge in a yin yoga practice is different than a challenge in a movement-based practice.

We’re not going to get hot and sweaty. We’re not going to stand on one foot. We’re not going to strengthen our core. We’re not going to, do any inversions. So we’re not doing that kind of a challenge, but the challenge of the yin practice is a little bit more subtle. and a little bit more quiet.

And that the challenge in a yin practice is often in the mental and emotional realm. And I say mental-emotional realm, because [00:23:00] it’s hard to separate those two. Although I’m going to for this podcast, I’ll say that. And then I’ll say, so if when I stopped talking, which I’m going to do shortly, You find that your mind goes into the thinking, and the planning, and the list writing, and the analyzing, and the ruminating, and the storytelling, and the itching, and the bitching, and the twitching, and the obsessive thought loops, and the anxiety, and all the things.

Please know, you are normal. This is 100 % human. Every single person in this room is having some version of that mental experience. You think that your brain is especially squirrely while everyone else is completely Zen is just not true. Every single human in this room, including your teacher, has a busy brain.

So let’s just get that out of the way right from the start. So what I’ve done is I’ve normalized the busy mind. I’ve explained to them this is normal. I’ve told them they’re all in the same boat so they don’t feel alone.[00:24:00] So this is what I do before I even give them techniques. Hey, guess what, guys?

We’re all busy brains. And I’ll often say things like in our daily lives, we’re expected to do all the things we’re multitasking, or at least we think we are all the time. And so then when we do come and try to just be still and quiet and focused, the mind often literally doesn’t know how to do that.

It’s like sort of like asking your mind to run when it’s not very good at walking yet. And so this is why. I’ll share concentration techniques to help them begin to focus and anchor their mind. The other thing I’ll explain to them is that we’re not trying to stop thinking here. Sometimes people think that they can’t be in these more meditative practices because they can’t air quotes, stop thinking that the mind is always thinking everybody’s mind is always thinking. This is not the point. [00:25:00] The point is instead to refocus our mind when it wanders away.

This is the practice. The mind wanders, we go, oh, off it went. We gently come back. My teacher once explained it like this, we’re not trying to stop thinking. What we’re doing instead is we’re just putting the thoughts in brackets. Like if they were in a sentence, putting them in brackets and then kind of sliding them over to the side.

And then we’re redirecting our awareness back to the center. So that was an interesting visual. Okay. So now that we’ve told them, your mind will be busy. This is normal. Welcome to humanity that we’re not trying to stop thinking, because those are the two biggest misconceptions out there when it comes to these quieter, more meditative practices, whether it’s Yin or just sitting your butt on a cushion, trying to meditate.

Now I can talk a little bit more about what they could do with their mind. So now if we realize, okay, the mind is like this sort of Untamed animal that I want to harness in a little bit. I’m going to find a concentration technique. Now, these are just some of the ones that I share. There’s probably a gazillion of them out there and different ones are going to work better for different people.

And again, these are all fairly basic level ones that you could share in a mixed group. These are not next-level practices where you’re picturing meridians and things like that. , simply because that’s not where most people are. So, the first technique that I’ll tell them that they could do is to have an awareness of their breath in their belly.

Why their belly? Because it’s a bit more gross, or not as subtle as, say, the nostrils. And also because it helps to move their awareness and their energy down. So I talk about an awareness of breath in the belly, but what does that mean? We need to break these things down for people. So I tell them that you could just feel the sensation of breath in the belly.

[00:27:00] Those people like myself that are really kinesthetic, I’m a kinesthetic and visual learner pretty much equally. But those people who are really kind of hands-on learners who use the sense of touch a lot will work well for them. I also tell them they’re welcome to bring their hands there if that’s helpful.

So they can feel the breath in the belly, either the breath rising or the belly rising and falling on its own, or maybe with the hands. That’s one option. We’re still on breath in the belly. I’m just giving out different techniques for different personality types. So one is feeling the breath in the belly.

The second one I’ll give is picturing the rise and the fall of the belly. Those folks that are quite visual, their mind will anchor well to an actual picture. Now not everybody can visualize things in their mind. This is why this is true, by the way. It’s not like a skill that people can practice and get better at, there is a group of people, I can’t remember the name of it right now, who actually [00:28:00] cannot picture things in their mind.

So if you’re a yoga teacher and you’re like, what? I didn’t know that. This is why you always want to give another option. Okay. But I do say for those of you who are natural visualizers, if you automatically picture things in your mind, if that’s how you process the world, maybe you picture or imagine the belly rising and falling.

Maybe you have that image in your mind of your belly rising and falling as you breathe. And then I give a third one for breath awareness in the belly, and that is for those folks that are a little bit more analytical, a little more logical, and I tell them they are welcome to count the breath in the belly.

How this works is inhale, exhale, count one. Inhale, exhale, count two. Inhale, exhale, count three. You get the idea. Just their natural breath. I’m not speeding up their breath. I’m not slowing their breath. I’m not doing any of that. Just their own natural breath rhythm, but they’re just adding a count to it.

And then explain to them that because those people that are a [00:29:00] type personalities immediately are going to think, what’s the goal? What’s the number to get to that? There is no goal number. That’s not the point. The point is just to give your mind something simple consistent and familiar to chew on.

So there’s no goal. But if their mind gets distracted, start again at one. Okay. So all of those three techniques are breath awareness in the belly. We have to feel it, picture it, count it. Why three different styles of breath awareness in the belly? Well, because we all have different minds. Some people are going to go well with picturing some people are super kinesthetic and some people tend to be a little more analytical and kind of up in their heads so for them, adding account to it will be helpful.

 The next option that I’ll often give. is a word or a phrase. Now, usually, we’ve planted this word or phrase at the beginning of class. I get them to bring their hands over their heart and ask themselves the question, what do I need from this practice today?

Or what do I want to get from this practice today? And then to plant that word or short phrase, it has to be short in their heart, like a little seed. Okay. So we’ve done that at the beginning. And now I’ll say to them, you can use that word or phrase as an anchoring point. There are a couple of ways that you could do that.

One is you could just softly say that word or phrase to yourself, for the duration, although that’s not usually what I recommend, but it does work for some people. But how I like to use the word or the phrase is like a little thought loop interrupter. So how this works, for example, is. Okay, you imagine you’re lying there, you’re in the shape, you’re noticing the sensations, you’re feeling this in your body, you’re aware of your breath, you’re in the moment, right?

You’re in the pose and the moment. And then whoop, off you go. The mind is gone on a circus adventure. When you notice that you stop the thoughts, you just pause them like you could put a little pause button. You say that word or phrase to yourself. And then you come back to noticing your body and your breath and the sensations in this moment.

This technique helps to break the thought loops so that gradually the thought loops are less present and you notice them quicker. A word or a phrase as a way to just put a little pause on that thought loop, remind yourself.

What are you hoping to get from this practice? What do you need from this practice today? Summarizing that in a word or phrase and saying it again to yourself, and then coming back to your body, to your breath, to the room, to this moment. So that’s another technique. And then the third technique that I will often share is a little bit more of an embodied technique.

For those [00:32:00] that are kinesthetic learners. So I’ll say when you come into your shape and you’ve settled in and you found the basic working position that you found your 50 to 60 percent you’ve settled in, you’re comfortable enough, then notice the area of sensation. In your body, and then send your breath there, almost as if you could breathe directly in and out of that spot, bypassing your nose, your mouth, your lungs, your trachea altogether, and breathe directly in and out of that area.

So that is another technique. So, recap what we’ve got. And then I’ll add more. We’ve got breath awareness in the belly, whether that’s. Feeling it, picturing it, or counting it. We’ve got the possibility of using a [00:33:00] little seed word or phrase as an anchoring point for them to return to. And it’s better if they can come up with this on their own, because planting out an intention phrase or a word phrase for them may not resonate with their experience in their life right now.

So that’s why I asked them to come up with their own, something they’re working on in their life right now, or something they just need today in this moment from this practice. How they would do that is when they notice the thought loops are going, hit the pause button, say the word or phrase, and come back to their felt embodied experience in the moment.

The third thing we’ve discussed so far is finding or identifying the areas of sensation in the body and sending your breath there. So those are three techniques that I would use with anywhere from an absolute beginner to somebody who’s got some experience. There’s a couple more that I’ll.

I’ll mention here [00:34:00] that I still consider pretty, you know, beginner to intermediate, but that I wouldn’t use with a group that was, all new people. Okay. Cause they’re just a little bit more subtle. Okay. So a couple of other things that often I will share with students when it comes to their mind and their practice.

And again, as I mentioned, I don’t necessarily do this with absolute beginners because it’s just a bit more subtle. One of those is. Again, when it comes to sensation in the body. So finding the area of sensation in the body and then really nerding out and getting curious and kind of geeky about that physical sensation in your body.

If you were to describe the sensation in your body to someone who wasn’t [00:35:00] experiencing it, how would you do that? Would it be a word, a light, a shape, a colour, a sound, or a sound effect? Does it feel warm or cool? Is it consistent? Or does it change, either from the beginning of the shape until the end of the time that we’re here?

Does the sensation in your body feel different on your inhale versus your exhale? What kind of stories is your mind telling you about the sensation? So that is a deeper layer of exploring the sensation, right? The initial layer is just to find the sensation in your body. Send your breath there. For those that are comfortable with that, then we can get into really being curious and nerdy about the sensation in our body.

Using the sensation in the [00:36:00] body as a tool for interoception. If interoception is a new word for you, we did a whole episode on that. I’ll link it in the show notes, but basically, interoception is an awareness of what is happening inside of you. So taking the physical sensation in the body and getting curious about it.

What does it feel like? If I were to describe it to someone who’s not experiencing this, how would I do that? A word, a light, a shape, a colour, a sound, a sound effect. Does it change? depending on where I am in shape, and what minute we’re on. Does it change depending on my breath? Is it different on my inhale versus my exhale?

Does it change when I notice what my mind is telling me about the sensation? So is my mind telling me all kinds of stories about the sensation? Like,  why are my hips so tight? Or is my mind just able to be open and curious, or if my mind is telling me stories about the sensation, and then I notice that and I pause that story, does now that change the way this feels in my body?

So again, this is a little bit next level, but it’s using this physical sensation in your body as a way to get extra curious and nerd out. 

And then another thing that I will often share, with my students, again, who have a bit more experience. Is mindfulness, but I don’t usually use that word because I don’t feel like most people know what that means. And again, there’s been a whole episode on that too. I’ll link in the show notes. So I call it big sky awareness. There’s a state of contentedness that can happen.

It’s sometimes rare and fleeting and elusive, but it [00:38:00] does happen. Where we are in our practice, we’re in our bodies, and we’re sort of aware of everything that’s happening at that moment, but nothing specific is pulling our attention away or pulling our attention into obsessive thought loops. So I call this Big Sky Awareness.

So if you can imagine that you’re laying outside, whether it’s in a meadow or beach or wherever you would like to lay outside, and you’re looking up at the sky and clouds are going by, you’re aware that clouds are floating by, but you’re not looking at any one particular cloud, trying to make animal shapes out of it, right?

You’re not getting caught up in any one particular cloud. You’re just sort of content and comfortable and floaty and you’re noticing that the clouds are floating by. You’re aware of everything that’s happening at the moment, but nothing specific is pulling you away. So you might notice the air on your skin or your breath or the sensation [00:39:00] in your body or a sound might pop up outside that you notice and then you notice something else about being present.

So it’s an open, expansive awareness of being present. This is fleeting and challenging. So this is why I don’t talk about this that much with beginners, because most beginners there’s, I’m sure there are exceptions, but most beginners are not going to be in big sky awareness for a while.

They’re going to need these more concentrated anchoring techniques to help them with their mind.

You can also use your time on the mat. Again, this is a little bit more sort of next level in a yin practice as an opportunity to notice your repetitive patterns. With curiosity, so you come into the shape, you settle in, you start to notice thoughts are coming up, I’m thinking again, or [00:40:00] I’m daydreaming again, or I’m worrying, or whatever it is.

And then being curious about that just long enough and letting it go and noticing if the same thing comes up again and again, you start to notice your patterns. And here’s the thing. When you notice your patterns on your yoga mat, odds are those are the patterns you have when you’re not on your yoga mat and you’re out just doing your life, right?

So if you are prone to worry or if you’re anxious, that’s probably not only happening while you’re in your yoga pose, it’s probably happening all the time out in your real life.

If you find that you’re constantly thinking about the past while you’re on your yoga mat, odds are you spend a lot of your life thinking about your past. Or the future, whichever it is for you or daydreaming, whatever the mind state is. So this can give [00:41:00] us some little aha’s into our process in our life and how we are in the world and what our mind is like, even when we’re not aware of it.

And one thing I want to make sure that we share with students, if you’re a teacher listening, is that yin yoga isn’t making you think. Yin yoga isn’t making you anxious. You are always this way. The reason you’re noticing it now is that you’re not distracting yourself from it. So I’m going to say that again.

I think it’s pretty important that as teachers, or if you’re a student out there listening, it is important to let your students know yin yoga isn’t making your mind busy and Yin Yoga is not making you anxious. It’s yin yoga is not doing any of this to your mind. Your [00:42:00] mind is already like this. You just weren’t aware of it because you don’t allow yourself the time to sit and be still and be quiet

so important to normalize the mind, to normalize our experiences with the mind, to let students know, or yourself, if you’re listening to this and you’re a student, or if you’re a teacher and you’re like, Whoa, I never thought about all this. This is normal human stuff, right? All of this mind stuff. This is normal.

And that allows people to have more patience.

So I mentioned that I had a student earlier in this episode who came and was anxious, so anxious. She said she wasn’t sure [00:43:00] she’d be able to stay. So the reason that she didn’t think she’d be able to stay is because she thought. That she shouldn’t be anxious and do yoga. She thought that while practicing yoga, anxiety was not welcome.

That somehow being anxious and sitting with that anxiousness was not part of the yoga experience, but it is now, of course, first of all, I’m not a psychologist. Let’s just get that out of the way. But I am an anxiety survivor, thriver sometimes, so I’ve had anxiety my whole life and I know this happens a lot in yoga in general, and especially in stiller, quieter forms of yoga.

Some anxious personality types feel the need to move before they can be still like they need to, they feel like they need to move, move, move, move, move, move, move to kind of like almost burn it out. It’s like that kind of phonetic, anxious energy and then they can settle into stillness.

And then some anxious personality types are exactly the opposite. I’m that type. So for example, if I’m in a state in my life where a lot is going on and I’m dealing with anxiety, the last thing I want to do is do a movement-based practice because that just increases that stimuli for me.

I need to like to get down on the earth and be still, but we’re all different. So a few techniques to deal with the mind. I’m sure there will be future episodes on the mind.

and more in-depth stuff coming up. But I think that this is a good basic framework. There’s one last technique that I’ll share with you that I use with my students. And again, this will probably be a whole episode on its own at some point, that is metta practice or loving-kindness, or the translation that I prefer is loving friendliness.

And if you’re not familiar with this practice, again, I’ll do a much more in-depth interview with this at some point. But for now, just to say that in the Buddhist tradition, there is a practice where you say these little phrases to yourself and you also wish them to other people. And so I’ll take usually just the meta phrases and depending on the group, if it’s a fairly beginner group, I will just do the self-directed metta.

I’ll talk about that in a moment. I’ll give you some ideas. If it’s a more experienced group, then maybe we’ll do a whole metta practice, while we’re in the practice. So we’ll start with ourselves, and then we’ll move to somebody that we genuinely love and adore. And then we move to, sometimes in the Eastern traditions, they say a benefactor, which doesn’t translate that well in Western terms, but it might be like a mentor or something like that. You move to somebody who you feel kind of neutral towards, somebody you don’t know that well, but. You feel alright about, and then you move towards somebody who challenges you. Okay, so that’s kind of the gamut. 

But often what I’ll do in a kind of mixed-level group, or if there are a lot of beginners, is I’ll just do the self-meta as their anchoring point.

And what I’ll do is I’ll share the phrases three times with them each time they come into a pose or each side, if they’re doing an asymmetrical pose. And then the invitation for them is to either Pick up where I left off and continue to gently say those phrases to themselves while they’re in the shape or to just let my words wash over them and settle into any other way to practice.

So [00:47:00] metta phrases is another one of my absolute favourite ways. , to help people, with a little extra self-care and to give them something mentally to chew on. My favourite metaphrases are, so if I were saying this to my students, I would say it in the I language so that when they’re reciting it to themselves, they’re saying it to themselves.

Okay. So I would say, may I be healthy? May I be content? May I be at peace? May I be free? So those are my favourites. So may I be healthy? May I be content? May I be at peace and may I be free? And so I will repeat those three times that little group of phrases, and then I’ll let them [00:48:00] just be with the invitation that they can either continue to say that to themselves, or they can just let my words wash over them and then just settle in.

So that’s another technique that I often use. Okay, so I think that’s enough talking about the mind in yin. This is again a preliminary, what do we do with our minds in yin? What is the role of the mind? Why do we even want to talk about the mind if we’re a teacher? I’m sure in the future we’ll have episodes where we dive deeper into this, as well as maybe some other different practices that you could use in your classes, especially if you have more experienced students.

And just remember that there are all kinds of different minds out there. This is why I give them, options. I give them a small buffet of options to choose from. Just because as a teacher something works well for you doesn’t mean it’s going to work well for your students.

There are different learning styles. So I would encourage you if you are a teacher listening, first of all, do not ignore the mind, discuss it, normalize it, make it human, and let your students know they’re not alone. That is when they get into this Yin pose, their mind goes off on a tangent, there’s nothing faulty with them.

They are not broken. Nothing is wrong. This is human. Here are some skills that we can use to help anchor our minds, to improve our concentration. So that’s where most people are at. Most people think that they want to get into thoughtless awareness. And they want to have this sort of trippy meditation experience, and because they can’t stop thinking, they’re never going to get there.

One other thing that I will say that I say to my students, and then going to wrap it up, is that. We want to find what the Buddha would have called the middle way here. It is not helpful. And some, there are some Buddhist traditions, they’re very strict with the mind, I don’t think that that is very helpful when we’re talking about, Westerners because Westerners already tend to be so hard on themselves, so critical, so much of a perfectionist and so judgmental that that can almost make it worse.

So here’s what I always say to students. Can we find what the Buddha would have called the middle way? I’m not going to lie here in my yin yoga practice and just let my mind go into all kinds of fuckery. Just let it do its thing. Woo! Off it goes. Because let’s face it, we’re all, really good at that.

All of us are good at obsessive thinking. Mastered it. Don’t need to practice that. So we don’t want to do that, nor though we want to, every time that the mind wanders away, be harsh or judgmental or critical with ourselves. Ugh, I can’t do this right. Why is this so hard? I can’t meditate.

La la la, all the things. I’ve tried that. It doesn’t work. Take it from me. Learn from my mistakes. Being harsh or judgmental or critical of your mind as you’re trying to anchor your mind does not help you anchor your mind. It just makes it worse. So instead, find the middle way. Can you be gentle and compassionate with yourself when you find That the mind has wandered away,
not letting it run amok and not being harsh or critical with yourself? What is in between their gentle, compassionate reminder and awareness
So instead of being critical or harsh or judgmental with yourself, pause when you notice that it’s happening, take a breath, be compassionate with yourself, and at the same time, have the dedication to return to your body, to your breath, to this moment.
So yes, the mind goes wandering. And when it does, you notice it, you just gently return it home. Again, and again to your body, to your breath, to this moment, and these anchoring techniques that I’ve been talking about for this whole episode are a way to bring us back. They’re a way to bring us back and give us something to anchor our awareness to something a little bit more tangible.
So that’s a lot of talking about the mind in yin yoga. And again, I’m sure we will revisit the mind in future episodes. But for those of you that, are teachers. Little summary. First of all, please talk about their minds. Let them know the mind might be an issue here. Normalize it. Let them know it’s human.
We all have busy brains. It’s okay. It’s normal. Give them something mentally to chew on. You feel free to use any of the techniques I’ve shared or any of your own. And I also say that to my students. I’m going to share several techniques with you. Please feel free to use any of them if they resonate with you, or if you have your own grounding or meditative practice, please feel free to use those techniques instead.
Right. These are just offerings. If they help take them. The other thing I like to let them know is that this isn’t a buffet where you’re going to sample a little bit of this technique in this class. And then this one, and then this one, and then this one looking for like the magic pill, because there is no magic, shut my mind off pill. to choose one that at least makes sense to them, for now, resonates with them today.
Try it out. They can use a different one next week. Right. So normalize the thinking mind, let them know that this happens, give them something to chew on and remind them to be gentle and compassionate and patient with their busy brain. So that’s sort of an overview of the mind in yin. And some are just simple, very practical, very concrete things that I hope will be helpful for you in your classes, whether you are a student of yin or a teacher of yin, or in your practice.
All right. Thank you so much for joining me and I will talk to you again in the next episode. Bye for now.