09/08/2026
The beauty of a moving Mindfulness practice is that we can actually learn to rest in mindful attention even when feeling particularly uncomfortable (as long as we detect we are not striving and straining).
Our attitude can become one of ‘offering’ rather than ‘constricting’. “Let me breathe into this” might be the inner dialogue, instead of ”Ugh, I need to push against this.” We begin to sense that where our attention goes, circulation flows. This gentle shift in perspective allows our inner experience to become much more fluid, flexible, and adaptable.
The habit of resistance to what’s happening will of course still continue to arise, but our intentional practice of kind and keen inward drawn attention frees the experience from one of struggling, to one of relating.
This becomes especially relevant as we practice the longer holds in Yin yoga postures, but can also be applied in any style of yoga. So often we may be solely focused on the body shape we are trying to create, completly ignoring our current attitude. We may even unconsciously adopt a tense resistance to our experience, assuming this to be an appropriate response to difficult circumstances, unaware that we are feeling frustrated by the limited range of motion in our hips or our tight hamstrings while unwittingly inhibiting the Qi flow in that area. In Mindfulness moments, we deliberately observe our relationship to what’s happening, noticing we may need to slightly back off from the intensity of the pose. In this way, we can invite our attention to turn towards our experience in a mindful way (neither for nor against what we are noticing), naturally allowing the energetic force to wind its way through the inner rivers again.
In a moving Mindfulness practice, we learn to quietly flow in both body and mind, acknowledging and allowing what is arising in us moment by moment.
Sarah
