End-of-year Savasanana
My daughter was enrolled in a yoga class for PE credit in 2020. When school moved to distance learning in the spring of 2020, I joined my daughter for yoga class from home for the Spring semester. Through my 20's, I enjoyed practicing yoga with my mom, so this opportunity to be able to connect and bond with my daighter through a shared yoga practice felt like a very full circle experience.
I was grateful to be able to enjoy this practice together.
Practicing yoga in our living room welcomed in far more chatting and grunting through tough poses more than in a traditional yoga setting of serrenity and calm in a studio. But I found the banter and screaming a welcomed change and helped to release even more emotion that was trapped in our bodies.
As we neared the end of every practice and would feel exhausted from pushing our bodies, we would begin to chant for savasna, the final resting pose designed to end every yoga practice.
This corpse pose, as it is also termed, is the opprunityy to lie on one's back with palms faced to the sun and your feet splayed out to allow and welcome in the rest and integration of the practice. The stretching and strength building just encountered would then be integrated into the cell and muscle memory of the body.
Savasana is an essential part of the yoga practice as it completes the experience and allows the body to uplevel its energetic frequency by embodying its recent energetic and physical journey.
This past week, my daughter and I were doing yoga in our living room and during savsana, the teacher said, “Now we allow our practice to integrate into our bodies.”
This wording landed on me so powerfully as I thought about how we are at the end of our year and how important it is to integrate the lessons and wisdom. we’ve experienced this year.
What have you learned this year? Where has your journey taken you?
What happened that you might not have expected?
How have you grown and changed?
When we can get quiet and integrate this expansion, wisdom and growth, we can feel better prepared for what’s to come in the new year.
Deva Tree wrote a beautiful article on savasana. Here is their recommended three-step process and I challenge you to apple this to the yoga practice of your life.
There are actually three stages of Savasana:
Stage One is allowing the body to find relaxation, which takes the average person approximately 15 minutes. The first stage is not yet savasana; it’s about allowing the body to relax. This is the place where the breath and heart rate slow down and the parasympathetic nervous system becomes dominant.
Stage Two is when savasana actually begins. The body begins to feel heavy and connected to the earth, and we withdraw from the external world. Stage two is similar to the idea of Pantajali’s 5th limb of yoga, Pratyahara, a conscious withdrawal of the senses. You know you’re in this state when you hear a noise but are not drawn to the noise. Focus has turned inward.
Stage Three, the final state of savasana, occurs when the ego and mind let go. This stage may not be experienced every time. When you do achieve it, you’ll feel disconnected from the ups and downs of the outside world and present with pure consciousness.
In this 52nd week of the year, the final phase of this year, I encourage you to practice savasana this week- rest and integrate your year’s lessons so that you can be upleveled, prepared and ready to enjoy 2023 in a new and empowered way.
The best way to integrate your year’s wisdom is to begin with withdrawing the senses just as stage two recommends above in the article.
Join me for this week’s powerful meditation, Withdrawing your 5 senses meditation, and allow your body to immerse itself into its own innate wisdom.
Namaste,
Erin