Yin Yoga & Self-Care Personal Retreat

Adapted from workshops held at Thrive Yoga and The Happy Yogi in October 2018

Purpose

This personal retreat has information to explore how you can care for yourself more, and more often. Take 2 to 3 hours for yourself to experience the poses and journaling exercises.

Agenda

During this retreat, you will:

Learn more about Yin, Yin Yoga, and Self-Care and why they matter.

Do a Yin Yoga practice, Guided Meditation, and easy and fun journaling exercises. You will leave with clarity, joy, and a solid foundation to bring more love and care into your daily life. You’ll also leave with a complete Yin Yoga Pose Card Deck to help guide your home practice.

What is Yin?

Yin-yang is a Chinese philosophy describing how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary and interconnected.

Yin-yang means “dark and bright.” Everything has yin and yang aspects: a shadow cannot exist without light, the stars only shine at night.

Yin: moon, female, passive, cold

Yang: sun, male, active, hot

Can you think of other examples?

What is Yin Yoga?

Yin Yoga uses these principles of Yin to create a meditative movement practice. So we move slowly in a darkened room; we take a long time in poses, we stay cold in our muscles, and we move inward.

We stay in poses a long time to that we can STILL THE BODY to observe the mind and emotions. It can be uncomfortable, both mentally and physically. This is OK - just breathe, do meditative techniques. If you feel pain in the body, ease out of the pose a bit. We are here for enjoyment and self-love - not to torture ourselves ;)

Cueing is mostly for the joints, but we will engage some muscles to keep our structure safe. We will use lots of props as well to make sure that our joints are supported.

How does this relate to Self-Care, and Why does it matter?

Psychologists (Norcross and Barnett, 2008) say self-care is not just an aspirational goal, but an “ethical imperative” because, simply, we cannot pour from an empty cup. We sometimes feel guilty doing self-care because of all the things we “should” be doing. The result is not only that guilt of not doing those things, but also perceived failure at self-care.

But here’s the interesting paradox: we work better, faster, and more focused when we take those hours to care for ourselves and refill.

It also helps us have a more expansive perception of the world.

Stress creates narrow views: me vs you, me vs the world, me vs time.

Relaxation reminds us that nothing is separate: me and you are on the same team, the world is not against me, I have enough time.

Nothing is separate. Just like yin-yang.

Yin Yoga is a type of “doing” that actually creates “being.” This is called conscious mindfulness. Doing Yin Yoga is a simple and effective method of self-care. Today you will discover some other ways you enjoy taking care of yourself and make a plan to do them more often.

Practice (90 min)

Idea: Put on a nice, soothing, spa-like playlist and take as long as you like in each pose. Try 5 to 7 minutes in each pose/side.

Observe your breath to begin. Watch the inhales and exhales without changing anything. Eventually, begin to lengthen the breath.

Child’s pose

Log Roll

Sphinx

Saddle (just as a transition) 3 min

Dragon/Half Monkey

Child’s (just as a transition, for a breath) - when we don’t feel like taking care of ourselves, this is a great place to come. Sometimes when we are sad or angry, we want to push past it and do anything we can to get out of that feeling as soon as possible. Yin offers us an alternative. We can sit with these emotions and ask them to be our friends. Observe their lessons. Instead of pushing through, we can choose to sit and reflect. Sitting with sadness or anger isn’t easy, but our mat is safe. We can breathe. And sometimes breathing, deep real breaths, is all we need. We can take as long as we need. This is effective. And we can return to take care of ourselves with love and ease.

Twists

Supported fish/reclined butterfly

Savasana

seated meditation pose

Guided Meditation (10 min)

Idea: Record yourself at your own preferred pace reading the meditation below. Play it back for yourself when you are ready to do the guided meditation.

You are walking down a beautiful hallway with many doors. Ahead you see a door and you know it is just the one for you. You enter and see that this room is filled with all of your favorite things. The room was built just for you. You look around and notice the walls are your favorite color, and the windows look out on your favorite scene. Imagine the contents of this room. What is there for you to sit on? What is there for you to delight in? What is there for your enjoyment? What decorates the walls?

How does this room make you feel?

Having anything and everything you could ever need, what do you decide to do first?

Imagine doing that thing.

Take a few minutes in your room alone.

When you are ready to leave, you take another look, offering deep, heartfelt gratitude for this place, and close the door, knowing you can return whenever you desire.

Journaling

Free journaling (5 min)

Write anything down that has come to mind, or that you don’t want to forget.

Permission Slip (10 min)

Our first journaling exercise is called a Permission Slip. This is essentially a laundry list of all the things we are allowed to do. Perhaps framed, “I am allowed…” Examples: I am allowed to have fun! I am allowed to say no. I am allowed to be happy. I am allowed to eat ice cream. I am allowed to be angry with my husband. I am allowed to take a yoga class in the middle of the workday.

You’ll start to notice all the things you subconsciously told yourself you are not allowed.

No filtering, just allow whatever to comes to the brain to come out.

Wishlist (10 min)

Keep the laundry list going and write down a list of all the things you wish you could do for yourself. Examples: I wish I could take a bath with a bath bomb once a week. I wish I could buy myself a new lipstick. I wish I could go to London. I wish I could go to yoga 3 times a week. I want to read from a book before bed. I want to eat dinner with my spouse.

Remember not to limit yourself or your possibilities.

Manifestation (Plan) (15 min)

Choose one item from the Wishlist that you can start doing daily or weekly.

Example: yoga 3x a week

Note all the obstacles that may prevent you from receiving what you want.

Example: I have a baby who needs me at night.

Solve at least one way to overcome each obstacle. Use a friend if you need help solving!

Example: My partner can step in and take care of the baby. My mother-in-law loves to watch the baby. I can take my friend up on her saying she’d babysit. I could go to yoga during work hours.

Knowing your solutions, on a new sheet of paper, make a contract with yourself right now for when, where, how you want to make this ritual happen.

Example: I am going to practice yoga 3 times a week, in a studio, after work. I am allowed to try different studios and different classes. Signed, Ally Austin

Share this plan with someone you love! It can be scary, but speaking aloud what you want to do for yourself is part of the work of manifesting what we want. It empowers you even more when you speak the vibration (words) into the universe.

Gratitude (5 min)

Our final journaling exercise is to offer gratitude for this self-care ritual, even though it hasn’t happened yet. Try to write at least 3 sentences or statements of gratitude.

Example: I am grateful my family is around to take care of the baby when I want to go to yoga. I am grateful I have found a practice that makes me feel so good. I am grateful there are so many options around my home to practice yoga.

**Why might you continue a journaling practice when this retreat is done?

Journaling increases self-awareness.

Research shows we retain information we write down. So write your goals daily! Read them aloud. Share them with those you love. They will become ingrained in who you are.

We gain clarity on what actually is and what we actually want.

We begin to choose to live our life by design instead of default.

Closing (at least 5 min)

Take a moment before beginning something new after this retreat. Allow yourself a moment to just sit and soak in your practice, your journaling, and your newly claimed time for yourself. Grab a cup of your favorite beverage and just sit. Look outside. Pray. Om. Chant. Sing. Enjoy!

A note from Ally:

I hope you enjoyed your mini-retreat! I would deeply love your feedback. You can contact me via email, text, phone call, anything! I would love to hear what your new self-care plan is :)

Blessings and love to you,

Ally