Surrendering Into What Serves Me Best

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of surrender. Not surrender in terms of giving up but more in terms of an allowing, a letting go of some of the things we hold onto so tightly that it holds us back, a sinking into what serves us instead of resisting it. 

Last week I taught a Yin/Vin Pop-Up class, and I felt this surrender in a physical way. In Yin Yoga, we hold poses for significantly longer - usually somewhere between one to five minutes. When you’re holding a pose, say a hip opener like Pigeon/Sleeping Swan or Frog, the body’s natural tendency, or at least mine, is tense up so that you don’t sink into anything that feels uncomfortable. Sometimes, we even do this without realizing we’re doing so. But when you do this, you’re just holding tension in your body, which ultimately doesn’t feel better and often takes more energy and effort than just letting yourself surrender into the pose. If you do allow yourself to release the tension and to sink in naturally (surrender of this nature is not forced), you’ll find that once you get past the initial moments of discomfort, it actually begins to feel better. Additionally, in this practice we used props when needed/desired, which allowed us to sink in while still being supported. It wasn’t a “free for all” of forcing ourselves past what made sense in our bodies in that moment. We simply sank in, surrendered into the props or the mat or our bodies instead of actively resisting, which may sound easy enough, but can feel quite difficult in practice. (Caveat - of course if you have an injury or other reason to not go into a pose or variation, definitely listen to your body!). 

I’m finding the same is often true off the mat. I notice that I’m often emotionally holding tight to ideas of how I should be, how I should feel, to expectations, to thoughts and judgements about (mostly my own actions in) the past, to others’ thoughts about me. In doing this, I’m not allowing myself to actually be myself. I’m not letting myself to surrender to the present moment, to who I am right now, to who I know myself to be without all of the shoulds and the what ifs and the outside opinions and influences. I’m not allowing myself to immerse in what is, because I’m holding on to expectations and what “should” be. To be clear, I’m not talking about “what should be” in terms of things like basic rights and being treated decently. All humans deserve that. I’m talking about “my career should be at this level”. I “should” be in this stage of my personal life. I “should” do this x way and say y this way”, other’s tell me I “should be like this or that”.  

In life, as in yoga, when often we hold on so tightly that we’re actually limiting ourselves. We’re afraid to get uncomfortable, to go past the outside limits of what we think we can do and be. And as in yoga, there are times when using our discomfort as a guideline is important. On the mat, if we feel like a specific pose or variation might tweak an injury, listening to that discomfort is important. Off the mat, if we’re uncomfortable with the way someone makes us feel (i.e. not respecting physical or emotional boundaries for instance), then it’s important that we listen to this and hold firm. But when we’re using our lack of comfort as an excuse or an obstacle for growth, to prevent deeper exploration and understanding of ourselves, to not have to push past self limiting beliefs or open ourselves up to opportunities that inhibit us. In these cases, what feels like avoiding pain or discomfort may actually cause more of it in the long run, just as what feels keeping ourselves out of discomfort in a pose may actually lead to tensing of muscles and joint pain later, or at best prevent us from easing these issues long term.  

So I’ve been working on surrendering, both on and off the mat. I’m working on developing my necessary boundaries, in poses and in life, that need to be respected (by myself and others). And with these in place, I’m able to notice the places in which I’m making excuses that allow me to stay comfortable, which in reality are preventing me from surrendering into who I am and what I truly need, which ultimately prevents me from connecting better with myself, and from growth. And to be clear, when in neither case am I saying that one specific place - whether it be a pose or a marker in life - is the goal. In yoga, the pose itself is never the goal. But it’s the process, it’s what the surrender allows to happen internally, that I’m working towards.