Have you ever tried to learn to meditate but the thought of sitting still to meditate made you so uneasy that you threw your meditation cushion across the room? For many, calming the mind seems 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 flexible and twisted, feeling comfortable in advanced classes. But when the second meditation was introduced, I started squirming and my wandering mind just bounced 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 breathing meditations, body scan meditations, different focus point meditations, and tons of other meditation techniques. But it didn’t click for me. I convinced myself that I couldn’t sit still and I certainly couldn’t quiet my mind.
Even if I can’t do a specific pose myself, that’s okay because I still have the ability to guide my students into that pose. But for me, not being able to meditate was different. So I didn’t introduce it into my classes because I didn’t feel comfortable talking to my students about quieting the body and quieting the mind when I couldn’t.
As my yoga practice and teaching progressed, I always felt like I was lacking for not being “a meditator.” And no meditation advice or techniques helped.
Finally, 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 pose for an extended period of time…like full minutes, not just 5-10 breaths. Have you already disconnected thinking it’s not for you? Listen to me.
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 could help you unlock the meditative state you didn’t think you could achieve.
Enter Yin Yoga
To expand my yoga knowledge, I tried different styles of classes. Being a flow yoga lover, a slow practice where I could only do 6 to 8 poses sounded like my worst nightmare. But it turned out to be quite the opposite: Yin was exactly what I needed to focus and feel calmer.
Yin is a passive practice that, as Bernie Clark writes in the Complete Guide to Yin Yoga“physiologically…it targets the deeper connective tissues.”
It’s a great practice, which means you shouldn’t do it with your body warmed up and it won’t be a warm-up cardio practice. The “intention of the practice is to safely and moderately stress our joints to promote the health of the tissues in and around our joints, not to overly elongate these tissues” (Yoga Diary April 2023).
And yes, physiologically it did all that, but I also found a way to get into a meditative state.
Practicing Yin has many similarities to meditation, starting with sitting in “stillness.”
Think about the child’s pose. Have you ever taken a class and started in child’s pose? Especially when it’s your first form on the yoga mat, when you first widen your knees and relax your sit bones toward your heels, you may need to move to control the physical sensations of the pose. You don’t start out feeling rested, but after a few deep breaths your body begins to calm down and your relaxation response kicks in.
So, you may find that you can now lower your head to the ground. You may notice that your arms can move forward a little further. Your breathing begins to level out. Your mind might even begin to focus on the sound of your breathing compared to any other thoughts your own mind has brought into the room.
Congratulations, you have just practiced Yin yoga.
How Yin Yoga is like a meditation session
As I focused on my breathing, adopted each Yin posture, and allowed my body to continue to adapt, I was in “the moment.” I wasn’t thinking about an email I had to respond to when class was over. Or think about what you 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 about sitting meditation.
I was having an ongoing conversation with myself to see if the discomfort of the relative stillness I was feeling was my brain on autopilot just wanting to keep moving toward something else, or my body saying yes. had to get out of shape. My mind was completely immersed in curiosity about 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 some time of consistent practice with Yin to realize that what I was doing was meditation. I was consciously in the present moment. It allowed me to get out of my own way and realize that there is no right or wrong way to meditate.
Finally, I used the same skill set from my Yin practice to begin sitting in what you would normally consider a meditation practice (sitting loosely with legs crossed and eyes closed). I have a cushion and turn on an app’s guided meditation for 5 or 10 minutes.
Some days I’m in it, I can stay focused with few distractions, and other days my mind wanders. But I can sit quietly and offer myself gentle reminders regularly to guide my mind toward that too, even if it’s a fleeting moment.
So if meditation is on your 2025 intention list and you’re bothered by 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? Send us a note below. –tam
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Tam Turse, MA, RYT-500 is the editor of FBG. When she’s not editing, writing, or working in marketing 9 to 5, she’s probably teaching a yoga class or training for her next marathon. You can find her on IG. @tamturse .
