How yin yoga taught me to stop fixing myself and start listening
I used to be sceptical about yoga.
I quietly dismissed it as something other people did — calmer, more elevated people. It didn’t feel like it belonged in my world. For me, movement had always been about results: running faster, pushing harder, burning calories, improving something. Exercise was about performance.
Then life shifted.
I found myself in a place where my nervous system was constantly on overdrive. Rest felt impossible. My thoughts were scattered, looping endlessly. And the kind of exercise I had always relied on — intense, sweaty, goal-oriented — only made me feel more restless.
That was when I started hearing the same advice over and over again:
Try meditation. Try yoga.
Meditation didn’t work for me at first. I was so restless that sitting still only made me feel worse. Yoga frustrated me too. I expected it to fix how I felt — quickly. I wanted relief. I wanted the uncomfortable feelings to disappear.
But I was approaching it from the wrong place.
Wanting to Escape vs. Learning to Stay
I wasn’t doing yoga to care for myself.
I was doing it to escape myself.
I wanted meditation and yoga to erase my anxiety, calm my mind instantly, make everything feel okay. When that didn’t happen, I felt disappointed and even more frustrated.
Still, something made me keep going.
I tried different styles and eventually found yin yoga — and that changed everything.
What Yin Yoga Gave Me When Meditation Couldn’t
Yin yoga is slow and quiet.
You stay in long stretches, often for several minutes, while focusing on your breathing.
My mind got something to focus on: the breaths and the posture of the body. The positions felt challenging. But something unexpected started to happen.
With every breath, I could feel my body letting go — not all at once, but little by little. Tension I hadn’t even realised I was carrying began to soften. My nervous system finally had space to slow down.
Some postures — especially hip stretches — would bring up emotions. I would often cry during practice. My spouse would jokingly ask afterwards, “Oh, did you do the cry yoga today?”
But those moments felt deeply releasing.
It was as if my body had been holding onto stress, fear, and unprocessed emotions for a long time — and yin yoga finally gave them permission to move through me. I would finish a session feeling lighter, more grounded, more myself.
Stress Lives in the Body
What I learned through yin yoga is something I now come back to often:
Stress and anxiety don’t live only in the mind.
They live in the body.
So it makes sense that we can’t always think our way out of them.
When we’re overwhelmed, logical problem-solving often stops working. I’ve learned to use a simple rule: if I can’t solve a problem in my mind within five minutes, it’s time to let it go — at least for now.
Instead of fighting my thoughts, I try to do something that signals safety to my body.
Yoga does exactly that.
Through slow movement and breath, it tells the nervous system: You’re safe. You don’t have to be on high alert.
Doing Yoga Not to Fix, but to Care
The effects of yoga weren’t immediate.
And that turned out to be the most important lesson.
I stopped doing yoga to fix what was “wrong” with me.
I started doing it as a way of doing something kind for myself.
There are countless free yoga videos available online, and no single style works for everyone. Yin yoga happened to be what my body needed — but your body might ask for something else.
What matters is listening rather than forcing.
When we stop trying to escape discomfort and instead meet ourselves with curiosity and compassion, something shifts. Not because the feelings disappear, but because we no longer have to fight them.
A Gentle Invitation
If you’re feeling restless, overwhelmed, or stuck in your head, consider turning toward your body — gently.
Not to perform.
Not to achieve.
But simply to be with yourself.
Sometimes the calm we’re searching for doesn’t come from thinking harder —
but from breathing, stretching, and allowing the body to feel safe again.
And from there, the road forward becomes a little clearer.
