The courage to stop. To pause. To rest.
How would it feel if you just stopped what you are doing and just had a rest?
In our world of non-stop busy, to pause and rest is often deemed as being ‘unproductive’; wasted minutes.
Therefore, to stop and rest is in itself a courageous concept.
Well, let’s have a play with that idea. Let’s be courageous, let’s rebel a little and play with time. After all, it is our time to play with.
So, I’d like you to lie down today. If you can do so now, great!
If it has to wait until later on, so be it. But at some point today, I’d like you to lie down on the floor.
By all means, make yourself as comfortable as possible, so if it needs to be on a bed or the sofa, that’s okay. Whatever helps to make this possible for you.
One of things I first noticed when I began attending yoga lessons, especially whenever I attended classes in a gym or leisure centre, was how often people would leave the class when it came to Savasana (Corpse Pose). Or even, how little time the teacher allowed for Savasana at the end of the class. And it used to make me wonder: have I got time to stay here?
(This happens less now as the yoga teachers that I have gravitated towards would never dream of such a thing.)
Now, there will be a million reasons for this, so speculating would be futile, but, in truth, Savasana is perhaps the most important asana.
Why?
Because it’s when we are in Savasana that we can we let go. And it’s in Savasana where we often - particularly if we’ve been able to connect fully to our preceding practice - that we can absorb all of the benefits of our practice, and experience a sense of peace and clarity unlike anything else I know.
But, in order to lie down in a class, or in our own practice, and fully let go, we need to become used to the feeling of lying down. We need to get used to rest. And this is where trying it and seeing what comes up can be really useful.
The idea is that the more we get used to moments of rest, the more we can let go in Savasana.
Now, Savasana isn’t always about doing nothing. There can be an element of activity to it, in that an element of mindful mediation can really help to structure the time. While people can, do and are welcome to fall asleep, I find a Savasana with a focus on following the breath and observing my thoughts to be incredibly insightful and always worthwhile.
However, I appreciate that it isn’t always so blissful for everybody. And so the invitation here is simply to be curious about why that may be?
We have a tendency to get swept up in our thoughts, believing fully in the drama of our lives (not to discount them), and forgetting about the essence of who we are underneath all of that.
Some of you may have heard of the idea of the blue sky and the clouds, or as Pema Chodron, the Buddhist teacher, said:
You are the sky.
Everything else is just the weather.
To further illustrate this point, I just want to take you back to before I practised yoga.
Back when I felt far too busy to have time for anything like that. When I went to a yoga class and absolutely hated it; as soon as I was still and alone with my thoughts, I found it too overwhelming, and I felt like I was wasting precious time. Time that I should have been spending doing something else. Something far more productive. But, really, in my case, when I look back now, I can see that I was avoiding myself.
And that’s okay. It’s completely normal human behaviour to do so. We live in a world that is designed to make this forgetting as easy as possible. It’s far harder to face ourselves and reconnect with the truth of we are - with our sky, and not our weather - than it’s ever been.
Although, when we discover a way to do so, whether it’s through yoga or drawing or walking the dog, we know that it’s worthwhile. We know that the freeing feeling is one we should be experiencing more often, and we will cherish that time doing what it is we love.
For me, now, meditation and yoga offer me the chance to convene with myself, and, in my opinion, there’s nothing quite like a guided Savasana.
So, here goes. Please find below my guided practice. It will take about 10 minutes. Ideally, we’d go on for at least 15/20 minutes, but I’d like to make this is doable as possible for everybody.
Please also find below this month’s journal prompts.
I decided to give you these at the end of the month this time because I really wanted the concept of courage to be digested before you completed the journal pages. When we get used to doing something, we can end up becoming a little bit automatic. And so, I hope receiving them now allows for you to give deeper, more considered responses.
So, until next week, when we will be moving on to May and the theme of Connection.
Peace, love and endless kindness,
Louisa
x
