The Easiest Things Can Often Be The Hardest

The most challenging position in yoga is not what you might think it is. It’s not camel. It’s not pigeon. It’s none of the handstands or pretzel-like bending poses.

It’s Shavasana.

Shavasana, also known as “corpse pose,” is simply lying on your back with arms and legs comfortably spread. It’s a pose of rest. It’s a pose with no movement. You would expect it to be the easiest pose, not the hardest.

But, sometimes, the easiest things can be the hardest.

In my hot yoga class, we use shavasana in between poses in the last 20-25 minutes of class when we have moved to movements on the floor. Despite welcoming the short rest, I have difficulty finding stillness in Shavasana and staying with the stillness.

My shirt needs to be adjusted.
Sweat is rushing down my face.
I have an itch.

There’s always something to interrupt my stillness–and that “something” is never anything that can’t wait; it’s a mental challenge that I often give into without much fight…until the end of class.

At the end of class, while we are in our final Shavasana, I do not allow my Self to get up and head to the locker room until I’ve taken ten long, slow breaths. Ten breaths may not seem like much, but once class is over, I’m ready to get out of the heat, shower, and make my way to the office (or back home today). The day is waiting, and society has trained me to move quickly from one thing to the next.

Ten breaths can seem like forever when you know you’ve got things to get to.But I sit with my breath.

As each breath passes, I get less excited about what I “should” be doing or what I need to do, and usually, around breath six or seven, I stop thinking and start being. When I finally complete my tenth breath, I’m relaxed and have a sense of calm that I can carry throughout the rest of the day.

Ten breaths. Sounds easy.

It’s not…but it is becoming less hard.

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See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,

JC