Committing to Freedom

by Sarah Tapas Yoga

Sarah Jamieson Yoga

My early encounters with the practice of yoga seemed to pour ease into my body, mind and heart. As I fell in love with the practice, an important lesson I was lucky to be taught is that yoga doesn’t “fix” our lives. Yoga doesn’t remove adversity and hardship from our path.

No matter how much yoga you or I do, we are human, and we will still feel loss, grief, heartache, anxiety, depression, fear, shame, anger and loneliness. And some days we will feel these emotions intensely enough that we may start to lose faith in the ways that our practice supports our lives. Maybe we start to consider that yoga isn’t working for us anymore. But these days of doubt are the days we need our practice the most.

In the classical Yoga Sutras, the sage Patanjali offers five observances to bring more ease and joy into our lives. Tapas, the third of these observances, is often translated as fierce discipline, but teacher Judith Lasater shares an interpretation that resonates more with me. She translates tapas as “consistency in striving toward your goals: getting on the yoga mat every day, sitting on the meditation cushion every day—or forgiving your mate or your child for the 10,000th time.”

I used to fear that routines and commitment would make me feel trapped and tied down. I didn’t want to structure my life because I wanted the freedom to creatively shape each moment as I lived it. But as my practice shifted to incorporate the consistency of tapas, so too did my sense of what it means to feel free.

I used to think freedom meant having the flexibility to do anything I wanted to do and, as a result, not knowing what the days and weeks in front of me were going to hold. Through practicing tapas, I discovered that freedom may not mean having all the choice in the world. Instead, it might mean not having to bear the burden of all those choices.

Am I going to practice or meditate today? Or go to the gym? What am I going to eat for dinner? Would this intriguing stranger make a better partner than my current one?

The mind becomes quieter with the decision already made. I have a daily practice that is sustainable through sickness and health, and I never have to spend an ounce of energy debating “Am I going to do my practice today?”

Starting to practice yoga changed my life. Adding the consistency of tapas brought an unexpected dose of ease. It taught me to appreciate the freedom that commitment can bring.


Photo Credit: Chris Yakimov

5 Things I’ve Learned from Restorative Yoga

by Sarah Restorative Yoga

 

Most of us need to be given permission to switch from the doing to the being mode, mostly because we have been conditioned since we were little to value doing over being. – Jon Kabat-Zinn

Practicing yoga has been life-changing for me and incorporating Restorative Yoga into my practice has taken the transformation to an even deeper level. I could easily write five rambling pages on what I’ve learned from Restorative Yoga, but instead I’ve narrowed it down to five concise lessons.

  1. Relaxation is a skill

Before I started practicing Restorative Yoga, I thought relaxation was something that automatically happened when I sat down on the couch after work, lay down to sleep or lay out in the sun. I’ve since learned that on a physiological level my body may not be anywhere close to relaxed in those situations. Relaxation requires intention and attention. In Restorative Yoga, we place the body in a comfortable supported position and then consciously shift the body into a Relaxation Response, a physiological state characterized by a slower heart rate and breathing rate, lower blood pressure and slower brain wave patterns.

  1. Being is as productive as doing

In her book Relax & Renew, Judith Lasater writes, “Restorative poses are poses of being rather than doing.”

When I first started practicing Restorative Yoga, I was constantly trying to get something “more” out of the practice – usually in the form of a deep stretch. I was seeking productivity in the pose. What I have come to understand is how much there is to be gained from non-doing in the pose. The stillness and the slowing down of the Restorative Yoga practice allows our bodies to devote time and energy to healing and restoring natural processes in the body.

  1. My body is the expert on my body

Practicing Restorative Yoga helped me to realize how often I looked outward to find more ease in my body. I had a well-developed pattern of seeking the advice of an expert to heal and recover from injury. Restorative Yoga has empowered me to start considering the expert on my body to be my body. I am learning to turn inward for answers, and Restorative Yoga allows me to find enough stillness to listen to what my body has to say.

  1. More ease is accessible in every moment

At first glance, Restorative Yoga might seem like laying around on a bunch of bolsters. But as your relaxation skills and body awareness deepen, the practice starts to spread out into the rest of your life – and it is nothing short of amazing! Whether you are holding a Warrior 2 pose or carrying your groceries, Restorative Yoga teaches you to be aware of how you can find more ease in your body.

  1. Ease can be found without movement

I originally came to the practice of yoga because of persistent pain in my right hip, and this pain still bothers me when I sit for a long period of time. Historically, I would fidget and stretch trying to find more comfort and ease, but Restorative Yoga has taught me to explore the possibility of finding ease without movement – and that has been far more successful than fidgeting ever was!