Have you ever tried to learn to meditate but the thought of sitting still to meditate made you so squirmy you threw in your meditation cushion across the room? For many, quieting the mind feels more like a chore than a moment of peace. And that can be a barrier to developing a regular meditation practice.
I have been a yoga teacher for more than a decade. I can be bendy and twisty, feeling comfortable in advanced classes. But the second meditation was introduced, I started to squirm and my wandering mind just bounced around like a pinball.
What if Traditional Meditation Techniques Don’t Work For You?
In my teacher training, we meditated and learned how to lead meditations – basic breath meditations, body scan meditations, different focal point meditations, and tons of other meditation techniques. But, it was not clicking for me. I convinced myself that I could not sit still, and I certainly could not get my mind to still.
Even if I can’t do a specific pose myself, it’s no problem because I still have the skill to guide my students into that pose. But for me, not being able to meditate felt different. So I didn’t introduce it into my classes because I didn’t feel comfortable talking to my students about stilling the body and quieting the mind when I could not.
As my yoga practice and teaching became more advanced I would always feel that I was lacking for not being “a meditator.” And no amount of meditation tips or meditation techniques were helping.
Eventually, I discovered the bridge I needed to finally settle into a regular meditation practice. It was Yin yoga. Yin yoga is a form of yoga where you hold a posture for an extended period of time … like full minutes of time, not just 5 – 10 breaths. Have you already tuned out thinking it is not for you? Hear me out.
Yin yoga can offer a gateway to mindfulness meditation for those of us who find traditional approaches challenging. Let’s talk about how Yin yoga helped me start meditating and might be able to help you unlock the meditative state you didn’t think you could reach.
Enter Yin Yoga
In expanding my knowledge of yoga, I tried different class styles. Being a flow yoga lover, a slow practice where I might only do 6-8 poses sounded like my worst nightmare. But it turned out to be just the opposite – Yin was exactly what I needed to simply focus and feel calmer.
Yin is a passive practice that as Bernie Clark writes in the Complete Guide to Yin Yoga, “physiologically … targets the deeper connective tissues.”
It is a cool practice, meaning that you should not go into it with a warmed up body and it will not be a cardio practice that heats you up. The practice’s “intention is to safely, moderately stress our joints to promote the health of the tissues in and around our joints—not to overly lengthen these tissues” (Yoga Journal April 2023).
And yes, physiologically it did all that, but I also found a way to enter a meditative state.
Practicing Yin has many similarities to meditation, starting with sitting in “stillness.”
Think of Childs pose. Have you ever taken a class and you start in Childs pose? Especially when it is your first shape on the yoga mat as you first widen your knees and ease your sit bones towards your heels you might have to wiggle to manage the physical sensations of the pose. It doesn’t start out feeling restful but after a few deep breaths your body begins to settle in and your relaxation response comes online.
Then, you might find that you’re able to now get your head down to the floor. You may notice your arms can inch forward a little more. Your breath begins to even out. Your mind might even begin to focus on the sound of your breath versus any other thoughts your own mind brought into the room.
Congratulations – you have just done Yin yoga.
How Yin Yoga is Like a Meditation Session
While I was focusing on my breath, getting into each Yin pose, and allowing my body to continue to adjust I was in “the moment.” I wasn’t thinking about an email I had to respond to when class was done. Or thinking about what I should have said in the meeting 5 days ago.
I was connected to my body and my breath and – little did I know – I was engaging in a meditation practice – even if it wasn’t the way we traditionally think of sitting meditation.
I was having a continued conversation with myself seeing if the discomfort of relative stillness I felt was my autopilot brain just wanting to keep moving on to something else, or my body saying that it had to get out of the shape. My mind was fully immersed with curiosity on the exact moment I was in.
My “doing” mentality was satisfied because I was “doing” yoga. The “being” mentality of meditation – of being in the present moment – was also satisfied.
A New Perspective on Mindfulness Meditation
It took me awhile of consistent practice with Yin to realize that what I was doing was meditation. I was mindfully in the present moment. It enabled me to get out of my own way and realize that there is no right or wrong way to meditate.
Eventually, I used that same set of skills from my Yin practice to begin to sit in what you would normally think of as a meditation practice (sit loosely cross-legged, eyes closed). I have a cushion and I pop on an app’s guided meditation for 5 or 10 minutes.
Some days I am in it, able to stay focused with few distractions, and other days my mind wanders. But I can sit with the stillness and offer myself gentle reminders regularly to guide my mind towards that too, even if it is a fleeting moment.
So if meditation is on your 2025 list of intentions and you bristle at the idea of being able to sit still for even a minute, try Yin yoga.
Have you ever tried Yin before? What was your experience? Drop us a note below. –Tam
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Tam Turse, M.A., RYT-500 is the Editor at FBG. When she isn’t editing, writing, or working a 9-5 marketing job, she is probably teaching a yoga class or training for her next marathon. You can find her on IG @tamturse .
