Posts In: yin yoga atlanta

I once had a student refer to yin as “lazy” yoga. Then when I explained the difference between yin and restorative yoga he said, “Oh, so it’s even lazier than yin.” I have to admit, I laughed!
My response was two words- intentional- commitment.
I appreciate my student’s perspective. It invited me to think even more about what is often a misperception of the restorative yogic arts- that it’s a whole lot of nothing and just kind of idling around.

Ultimately cultivating awareness and presence takes great discipline and commitment. And most of us work so dang on hard that we don’t know how to rest. In order to learn or remember how, then, would mean we need to practice, show up, and decide to actually stay present.
That’s the opposite of lazy.

I think my southern yogi folk can relate:

My mama is a super church going lady, reads The Bible for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And I told y’all she keeps “Jesus on the main line.”

My sister and I lovingly call my mama “our holy high roller” when we think she can’t hear us. When I started practicing yoga in 2003 she had lots of questions about whether or not it was a religious thing, was I chanting, if so, to whom, what did the poses mean, etc?
My feisty 20 something self gave flippant responses or just disengaged.
Over the years that transformed into actual dialogue and communication about my experiences with yoga and her spiritual practices. That gave way to more conversations about faith, grace, healing, and the place of practice, ritual, and community in it all.
That transformed into understanding each others paths and deep reverence and appreciation on both of our sides. Not to mention the relational/ancestral/generational healing {I reckon that’s another post}

There were people here. They walked this land before it was called “country” “united” “states” or any other such possessive thing.
We sometimes remember them in feathers, magic, dreams, and flutes; they are so much more than that. We are all standing on their bones and shoulders.
For the Indigenous of this land, I am grateful.

There are folk who survived a passage called Middle. Who, when pressed down, rose up again, and again, and again. They still rise every morning, when I do. I hear their chants, stories, and prayers in trees and rivers, open fields, street corners, and church pews. The fabric of my being is woven from their blood.
For my Ancestors, I am grateful.

In my life, many things have kept me up at night.

Lately, I stay awake long after the high moon to dream:
To walk through the hallways of my vision
To touch all of the images, ideas, and wild things there
To feel what I’m creating from the raw cells of my heart/soul
To taste the grit and sweetness of the day
To listen beneath the chatter of my noisy past
To see beyond what is in front of me
To sing gratitude for all this
To meditate on my purpose

Chillshop™ was conceived while I lay in a hospital bed recovering from a vicious altercation with exhaustion because no other prescription could manage my urges to “do more” be more”, “get more”, and “prove more”.

 

Of course that wasn’t the “official” diagnosis. The real one had a bunch more letters.

 

But I knew.

 

I knew that I’d been running myself to ragged pieces cause somewhere along the line I’d internalized that my greatest value was what I could “do”, how hard I could and would work, how far I’d live up to the legacy of super women I come from even if it left me faded and perpetually empty.

 

I knew that’d I’d been giving ‘good ole sit down and rest’ the stiff middle finger!

 

I knew I’d been overspending, which created the real need to work harder, hustle more, yada yada.

 

I knew that busy-ness had just become a way for me not to see me, not to be with me, thus— you got it— I ain’t got to deal with me.

 

I knew that I DID actually have  time to meditate, to maintain the yin and restorative yoga practices that truly nourished me, but crossfit, power, and hot yoga burned more calories and summer was coming and…

 In that dreary gray room I realized this “sometimes it takes more courage to stop than to keep going.”

 

I’ve been studying, learning, and practicing how to pause via restorative and yin yoga, meditation, yoga nidra, soul listening, and writing since then.

 

CHILLshop encompasses all of that and more.

 

CHILL means a lot of different things to a lot of different folk.

For me it means rest, “hold up”, pause, be easy, get quiet, listen ma, simmer down-now, let’s be together, it’s okay.

 

Be still for a spell.

Now.