My arrival at a Yoga Nidra practice happened slowly at first. Tracee Stanley was the teacher whose introduction welcomed me, she was a guest I encountered in another online network. I bought some of her meditations (although many are free, if you want to browse around) and listened— I enjoyed them, but didn’t dive in further. I suppose I felt I had some “other work to do” first, which was partly true. I had a few deeply held beliefs about rest, and deserving, and loneliness, that needed to be untangled before I landed in the practice.
When I bought her book I purchased two copies, which was a strange instinct. I just had a feeling I would want to give one to somebody. It was a familiar feeling, exploring a practice and having the acute awareness that this was exactly what I needed and total conviction that I needed to pursue it. (Maybe I’ll write more about what Yoga Nidra is at some later date, but for now you can read from others. Or you could try listening to some recordings to get an even better sense)
A Sadhana is a term that’s not unique to Yoga Nidra, and in essence it means a dedicated practice. It’s often held within a specified container of time, 21, 40 days, 90 days etc. It is a deepening of the practice through daily commitment, devoting oneself as a student. Before I was even done with the book, and after a consecutive daily practice for a week or so, I began a 40 day Sadhana last Fall and halfway through I knew I wanted to go longer. But I needed to make some adjustments.
Some of you reading know by now that I’ve been undergoing a series of surgeries this first quarter of 2024 (routine, but needed), which seemed like an excellent time to commit to a devotional practice of rest.
But I’m also in a space of life where I’m surrendering like it’s a good thing. I’m offering myself something I have rarely received in my life: grace. I had that kind of upbringing, and that kind of early adult life where every decision was one of survival. Risks were calculated. My need for stability was both real and pathological. Play was the best alternative for rest because I could not stop. You know the story… the circumstances change but the beliefs persist. I suppose it’s an occupational hazard for a trauma therapist, but not only did they persist they became more subtle and insidious.
On the surface those beliefs were sophisticated, rational, couched by meaningful insights and acknowledgements. But in my body they were mostly unchanged from my younger life, they found hiding places that were well protected. The fear was so alive— that if I ever stopped the weight of it all would crush me.
My mind is sharp and powerful, it’s an aspect of how I’ve seen myself that I’ve always had confidence in. It could be used as a shield, a weapon, a compass, a guide, and a trusted friend. Even in meditation, I would often default to channeling or become distracted by creative ideas. As beautiful as that process is, often brimming without wisdom beyond myself, the Mind didn’t stop. I didn’t want it to.
Stillness frightened me. Perhaps I felt my past had a gravitational pull, that if I stopped moving it would suck me back into an abyss. My mind had been a protector, a powerful force that helped me sculpt my life, and I didn’t know who I would be without it. If I wasn’t where I was supposed to be yet, who I was supposed to be yet, how could I be still? Wasn’t stillness akin to “unchanging” and “stagnant?” Wasn’t stillness a form of death?
Why am I telling you all this, over these recent months? Why show you this tender underbelly, the creeping insecurities and challenges of letting go?
Maybe it offers some backstory to the heart-centered meditations I’ve been developing, one of which I’ll be sharing in this Sunday’s Cultivating Self-Love virtual workshop.
But here’s the more salient reason: as much as it’s great to share all the wisdom, the cool “out of body” travels, and blissful results of a consistent Yoga Nidra practice— the part where you struggle, and your mind points out the obstacle, the damaging beliefs and compulsions— this is perhaps the most poignant part of the practice. The obstacles are even more instructive. And changing the relationship to internal obstacles, where you can begin to welcome them as forms of intuitive guidance…that part starts to alter how you move through day to day life. It forms a foundation of self-love that continues to shine even on the hardest days.
I’ve come to see stillness as an act of peace, of being satisfied, and knowing that who and what and where you are right now is enough. That beneath the illusion of your life, personality, your personality, your achievements and failures, there is a deeper you that’s fundamentally connected, whole, and aware. In that still point in ourselves, we can rest and be nourished. In the still point our connection to everyone and everything around us is absolute knowledge that requires no words. In the still point we find a resource that is constant and unconditional.
I began to ponder the idea that my mind had been a force to exert control over the deepest parts of myself, rather than a sacred tool of expression. When did I stop trusting that the feeling is enough? That BEing is enough?
I’ve written several times about unplugging from capitalism and overworking in this blog. So it came as humbling observation that when I would move towards deep nourishing rest (not just channeling, or trance, but allowing the movement of the mind to slow down to a stop) my body would sometimes wake me up abruptly and my mind would fill with “things to do.” The contrast was jarring, here I was deep in a state of blissful energy flow and suddenly I’m “woken up” by the overwhelming concern that there isn’t half an avocado left in the fridge for my lunch. In other words, “is there enough for me, do I have everything I need?” I have dozens of examples, but I’ll leave it to your imagination.
I thought I had found all those hiding places, where old dreams died and the relics of inner battles lay buried, but I was suddenly able to see things I didn’t notice before. I had been resisting rest because I was still attached to certain ideas of “who I was” and I was afraid of who I would become if I let them go. Or maybe more accurately, I was afraid there would be nothing left, no there there.
It seemed like the last five years had been a training ground for Yoga Nidra, I had unknowingly been practicing a number of techniques that were key to the practice and made for an easy entrance. Moving between layers of consciousness, awareness and capability to move energy in the body, the power of the breath, concentration, and willingness to listen the wisdom found beyond the personality— all leading me to this invitation to release and stop trying to do it all, and instead let the awareness be. To let my body heal itself.
So that’s the background. Some of you might be wondering what this actually looks like. This isn’t a recipe or prescription. However, a resource I have cultivated in unplugging from capitalism is that of time. AND I also have made time through eliminating distractions and time spent doing things that don’t matter. 1
If there’s a fundamental ingredient in cultivating rest, perhaps it’s is time. And reclaiming those bits of time can add up to more than you think. If you don’t believe me, check your screen time in the settings in your phone right now, and see how many hours a week are potentially available to reallocate.
Anyway, there are many ways to craft a dedicated practice, but this was my craft…
The first Sadhana featured a consecutive daily practice, listening to a 20-45 min recording each day, and being aware of the transitions of my life and where I was leaking my attention.
I kept up the daily practice because it felt so good, why would I stop? So I felt this had to go a bit deeper, and build on the previous learning. One key point to that was to start guiding myself through Yoga Nidra, with some recordings mixed occasionally to keep the practice rooted in traditional applications.
At the halfway point of a 90 Sadhana, the practice has looked like this:
*A daily self-lead Yoga Nidra practice (usually 35-60 mins)
*A frequent, if not quite daily, second meditation using either pratyahara (sense deprivation practice), stillness of mind practice, or another Yoga Nidra (at least 15 mins)
*No email, work-adjacent reading, writing, sessions, news, task-mastering, etc Friday afternoon through Monday night (mostly successful)
*Scaling back work to the minimum bare essentials, allowing ideas to percolate but mostly refraining from acting on them. Letting them simmer for a long time.
*Prioritizing physical recovery over other obligations, listening to my body and not pushing myself
*Attending live Yoga Nidra and meditation groups twice a month. turning my camera on, sharing and participating
*Lots of time laying around with my dog and playing together.
*Long talks with friends, and my wife, about things that might make me self-conscious or feel like a “weirdo” or “out there.” In other words, being super honest and vulnerable!
*Willingness to switch up the practice/schedule/intentions to align with what is needed at the time
It was suggested in Radiant Rest to keep a detailed journal, which I have, in order to record the experience and train my mind to remember more clearly. Like with anything, with practice a craft gets easier. And it also stretches between easier and harder; the more skill we develop the more we notice the areas that can be fine-tuned. Sometimes in the growing we go through an undoing process where something we thought we understood becomes murky, and then eventually clarifies to a deeper understanding. I have had magical, awe-inspiring meditations, and I have had plenty of meditations where it was a fairly constant stream of interruptions and attempts to recenter. Another note on that: I don’t view a practice that was full of distractions, or one that didn’t result in deep relaxation, as being less successful than others. These are great times to practice self-compassion and to live the value that all experiences bring learning. Practice not perfection.
This comes up a lot in my groups, the tendency for people to denigrate themselves when they can’t “get there,” when their minds are active or they are thinking about seemingly unimportant things. All behavior has meaning. All experience has meaning. You get to decide what that meaning is. You can choose to welcome interruption and be curious about what it is pointing you towards, where is the obstacle? Can you approach this obstacle in a collaborative way, letting it show you something instead of trying to eliminate it? I know that this is not easy because I practice it myself. I also know that with practice it becomes habit, and you start to instinctively approach your tender parts with care. You can learn to trust yourself, to accept yourself exactly as you are.
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There’s a quality of tectonic plates shifting beneath the surface, like one of these days something completely wild is going to happen and restructure the whole landscape of my mind. Or maybe it has already happened!
I do feel that my work with others has been made more potent as a result of this nearly six months leading to this point. Every time I have prioritized a personal practice to a greater depth, it has generally benefitted my work with others. More compassion, more ease, more capacity, more patience, more love. But this was not the point of doing it.
It has been a gift. A blessing received, and an act of devotion that is given with no strings attached. No expectations. An unconditional love for that deepest core, that light of awareness that is not about individual gain and nourishment, but about remembering what lies beneath.
So…I have to tell you that on the whole I feel great. And I also feel a bit exhausted (and simultaneously rested??), along with some amazingly cool adventures and journeys through time and space. And more than a fair share of overwhelming boredom, and occasionally a hint of self-doubt and guilt. I’m growing a capacity to observe all of that and frequently remember that I am the awareness, not the pain, the boredom, or even the amazing journeys and the joy and the bliss.
On a practical note I’m offering some of my classic groups/trainings to new cohorts2, I’m letting some offerings take a hiatus and bringing others back.
Lots of ideas have been gestating but most are not ready yet, I’m patiently waiting for them to develop— a new practice for me!
I hope these notes can be helpful for you, stirring your own imagination or planting some seeds of inspiration or insight. I hope that the new (and old) offerings will support you. I hope you can feel the call of new beginnings, and the willingness to feel the endings they require. Thanks for reading.
I’ll be back with a “part 2” 90 days recap sometime later.
- Some examples of materials recycled into time:
Checking my email 736682927 times a day, opening and closing other apps to “check” things, worrying about things that haven’t happened, agonizing about things that could’ve been done more perfectly, playing Two Dots (ok, I still do this but I now do it for fun and not out of habit), creating imaginary carts online of things I’m never going to buy, buying things I don’t need that are immediately disappointing, leaving important things in unruly piles that I have to keep re-piling, watching TV that is too uninteresting to watch without simultaneously being on my phone, et cetera ↩︎ - Integrating Reiki and Psychotherapy is back! This group filled up a few days before registration closed last year and was a awesome experience. If you’re a Psychotherapist or Coach and want to explore how these practices can deepen your existing work (and nourish you personally), I welcome you to join me ↩︎
Inward Vision 