Learning from Yin Yoga to Soften and Surrender

snippets of care

My dad is ill and the past few months and in particular the past few weeks have been filled with hard moments and ease alike - ease within the hard, hard within the ease, heartbreak and heart expansion all at the same time, all at once. Recently, things have accelerated.

I planted a strawberry plant recently and before the planting took place, we took out weeds that were choking the soil, draining it of life and oxygen. I plunged my hands in soil, gripped strong knotty weeds, and pulled, feeling the resistance of old patterns give away with patience and care. I turned over light brown soil until it became dark and loamy, ran my hands through the dirt, befriended worms, and made space for my new plant to find a home. The gardening practice reminded me of somatics work, where you cannot overlay new practices until you have had openings, released stuck energy and patterns known as conditioned tendencies. Without those openings, anything you try to implement will slide away.

In my own life, I’m trying to find those openings. I’ve recently moved to my childhood home, and moving back to a place in which you were a different version of yourself requires gentleness and patience on the part of everyone involved. This newsletter is a description of practices that have been/are helpful in this new life stage, and I share them in the hope they may be of benefit at times when you need to stay resourced, gentle and flexible.

1. Surrender (or the benefits of yin yoga)

Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don’t get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit. It’s a very tender, nonaggressive, open-ended state of affairs.

To stay with that shakiness — to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge — that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic — this is the spiritual path. Getting the knack of catching ourselves, of gently and compassionately catching ourselves, is the path of the warrior.

~ When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chödrön.

It is a Sunday night several weeks ago and for the first time in six years, I am in a yoga studio. There are slippers beside my mat and a cup of tea sits steaming beside me. Without having to reach for or set up anything, there are blocks, a long bolster, a head pillow and a blanket all at my side. I am grateful for these kindnesses and these acts of care - for the studio with lockers with their own keys, for the fact that I have not had to bring anything with me today.

I am in a yin yoga class, a form of yoga practice that is slow-paced and involves staying in long deep holds for several minutes at a time. I settle in, and as we begin our practice, the teacher shares words from Pema Chodron about how staying with one’s broken heart is the path to true awakening and how relaxing in the midst of chaos is the spiritual path. I am here to thaw, to return back to sensation. I go six more times to studios across the city over the period of a month before Ramadan begins. This practice is one of the few things that helps me return to my body and myself. That helps me release grief.

The next week the teacher speaks about Buddhist perspectives on suffering and the idea that suffering happens twice. There is the event or action itself, and then there is one’s reaction to the suffering. “Isn’t once enough?” she asks as we stretch our limbs in a forward fold. “How many arrows does one need to experience?” As we stretch and rest, she describes our time on the mat practicing yin yoga as a time for intimacy with self. We are barely moving, the room is darkened and the the only job we have is listen to her voice, to quiet our own thoughts and to hear what is emerging within us. My heart has a lot to say.

Off the mat, I try and practice surrender. My friend A and I speak for a couple of hours one afternoon and her words “it is what it is” becomes the mantra I repeat to myself in the days to come.

2. Befriend the Small

It isn’t possible right now to go on long slow workouts, to go on day-long dates, to feast on the sight of cherry blossoms, to go city exploring. What I am trying to embrace instead is the power of the small. I am finding respite in ten minute walks, fifteen minute board game dates, the sight of 2-3 cherry blossom trees around the neighbourhood, eight minute phone calls with friends, in sporadic writing. Even this newsletter has been in process for the past 2-3 months because there just hasn’t been space to write. It is harder to read or turn to art or write or do the things that normally anchor my life at the pace of before, but by shifting my expectations, I am finding something is still possible. That something is necessary to stay resilient, to stay whole and hopeful.

Recommendation: Floristry is a two person game that takes fifteen minutes to play and is based on both players competing in a flower auction based on the Aalsmeer Dutch Auction to win the best flowers and then use them to create the most charming window display. It involves flowers and cats and is really quite lovely to play.

3. Lean on your People - Ask People to Be Your People

I am a person who curls inward when things are hard. This has changed in the past few months, and I am keen for get-togethers, for jokes and banter, for phone calls, for community gatherings, to say yes more than saying no. I am learning the balance between boundaries and openness and have found a gatherer version of myself I had forgotten over the last decade. What I am practicing is being specific about what I need, and then asking people to join me as I move towards what I need. I am learning in real-time how to ask for help, how to ask for support, how to build reciprocal relationships, and to do this in ways that feel supportive and doable for myself and others.

4. Bloom Where You are Planted

I’ve moved to my childhood home recently and part of that adjustment has meant trying to learn and appreciate new things that are part of the new environment I’m in rather than think of things in my own home that I miss. There is so much to appreciate, from the gifts of caregiving, to learning more about oneself, to the joys of suburban walks, to the sounds of birdsong, and I am trying to capture and hold on to those daily blessings and bloom where I am now. This is a daily practice, but nothing is lost - my project manager skills I developed in the past are of use right now, the practice of service I’m learning right now will shape me in the future.

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My Favourite Things Lately

To Read

The Wedding People by Alison Espach (2024)

I was on the library waitlist for this book for months and when it finally arrived, I read it in a day. This is a book about starting again, about being alone, fighting about your survival, about finding the magic in the everyday, about finding a way forward when everything feels lost. I loved it and this wonderful book reminded me of another book I loved this summer: “You are Here” by David Nicholls.

Yours, Eventually by Nura Maznavi

A retelling of Persuasion, this was the most enjoyable Muslim Austen retelling I’ve ever read, and I recommend it as a fun, relaxing read. The story follows Asma, an emergency medicine doctor who is the middle child in her family, single and has what she feels is far too much responsibility. Her mother passed away when she was fourteen, her father has made poor financial decisions and needs to retire and relocate, her sisters are she feels, not to be relied upon. This is a story about Asma’s lost love reentering her life at a time when she least expects it, and if you know Persuasion, you might have a sense of how this story goes, but it is still worth the read.

Third Culture Cooking By

Zaynab Issa

(2025): This recently released cookbook is such a lovely presence in my life right now. I am cooking more than I usually do right now, and cooking from this book feels like being held by someone who cares deeply about you eating well. Each recipe is specific, and also has modifications to other ingredients if you don’t have the specific ingredient on the recipe list. It’s probably the best cookbook experience I’ve ever had and from my experiences thus far, this book is one that will help you eat really really well.

To Watch

Win Lose (2025, Disney+) A new series from Pixar, this extraordinary show is eight episodes about different characters surrounding the same baseball championship. All the episodes are out now, and the episodes cover perfectionism, vulnerability, parentified children, anxiety and so much more. I’ve watched each episode twice.

Stranger than Fiction (2006, on streaming platforms): This is a charming film about Harold Crick played by Will Farell who works at the IRS as an auditor and starts to hear a mysterious voice who says he is about to die. That voice comes and goes, and is the voice of Karen Eiffel, played by Emma Thompson who is a writer. Harold is the character in her latest novel that she’s been writing for the past ten years, and inexplicably, he also exists. It’s a story about changing the edges of your life, about the gift of life, and about what it means to create art.

What is giving you life this spring? I’d love to hear from you.

Till next time,

Shagufta