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I grew up hearing from my Black parents, “You have to work twice as hard to get half as much,” so I always strived to get what I deserved, not half, and for a long time, that commitment showed on my yoga mat.
Every time I walked into a studio where I was the only Black practitioner, it signaled that this was another place where I needed to excel, a necessity I had experienced in every academic and professional environment I knew.
Naturally, I built goals around hitting the poses. Reaching the most difficult expression in every posture, perfect alignment, and bending with my body became an integral part of my practice. It wasn’t until I experienced what I call “slow and steady practice” that I realized I was obsessed with not just doing my best, but becoming the best.
My self-awareness began with a slow, seated or lying-down Yin Yoga practice, where there is no perfect form or achievement, only deep listening, reflection and surrender.
This gave me the opportunity to break ingrained rules. Here I was able to let go of alignment and aesthetics. The pressure to perform disappeared while I held long forms that encouraged roundness, softness, and acceptance. Yin Yoga gave me the opportunity to listen to my body, feel the sensations, and observe what my body was doing. In these moments of stillness, I continually had revelations related to the standards I was holding myself to that were not rewarding me for achieving. Practicing Yin Yoga has profoundly changed my personality.
Yin yoga has allowed me to discover a different side of yoga and myself.
The Role of More Meditative Yoga Practices
We, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ people, are at the intersection of marginalization. We navigate the tumultuous experience of being human while also enduring all the micro- and macro-aggressions that come with our identities. This comes at a tremendous cost.
“History and contemporary evidence makes clear that BIPOC communities have been disproportionately exposed to traumatic events, whether through ancestral, community, or individual experiences,” says Lakeisha Gaitling, a trauma-sensitive psychotherapist.
Gaitling agrees that communities are “sent with messages from society that they need to excel, be stronger, and withstand social and systemic oppression. These issues often lead to an overactive nervous system, so the concept of relaxing is often something that has to be learned.”
That’s why the slower, more meditative practice of yoga can support us in the danger of simply being.
“The more you practice feeling calm, the easier it will be to recall that feeling and summon it in stressful situations,” explains Dr. Gail Parker. Restorative Yoga for Ethnic and Racial Stress and TraumaIn her book, she writes that for those of us who are used to coping methods that require great effort, the experience of safety in silence supports our ability to calm our nervous systems when needed.
Watching the news can make us feel angry and scared when people who look and live like us are victimized, as can the failure to accept the failures of our families and social systems. These are everyday realities for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ yoga practitioners, as can witnessing aspirational moments on social media. The Truman Show Contrasting with real-life experience, the push and pull of knowledge combined with our minds’ imaginations can create a terrifying loop that’s difficult to escape.
Slow, quiet practice prevents this.
“I think one of the ways that, as a queer person, I’ve responded to homophobia is by trying to compensate for my shortcomings by overworking myself to be liked. So my nervous system is overactive, and what’s most beneficial for me is to really slow down,” explains Jivana Heyman, author of The Best Of The World. The Inclusive Yoga Teacher’s Guide: Best Practices for Sharing Yoga with Everyone Founder of Accessible Yoga.
While your central nervous system doesn’t have an on and off switch, you can learn to move from a sympathetic to a parasympathetic nervous system state, from stress mode to rest mode. “Restorative yoga stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, increasing vagal tone and helping the body relax after stress,” Dr. Parker explains in his book.
As a teacher, Heyman is used to helping people move more, but his own practice also involves stillness: “Restorative yoga is the best medicine for living as a queer person in a world that only accepts parts of me. For me, it’s a way to start accepting myself fully,” he says.
Why I Practice Yin Yoga, Restorative Yoga and Yoga Nidra
“Yoga leads to more yoga.” When I first heard yoga teacher Indu Arora utter these words, I began to understand the calm, peace, and ability to be in touch with myself that emerges during my Yin yoga practice.
In the past, I needed a faster pace of practice to calm my mind, but the more I practice the more subtle styles, the less active styles I need to experience deep and lasting peace of mind.
Many of us learn to turn to our yoga practice to build resilience and endure the difficult times we experience as humans, but we also need experiences that free us from the constraints of everyday life.
The poses that led to this state for me were all slower, quieter, more meditative. Yin yoga gave me a place of restorativeness — restorative yoga felt almost criminal, given that work was in my DNA — and the waking dream state of Yoga Nidra transformed the way I experienced the world.
Rest, resilience, and radical vision have given me new ways to create a reality beyond labor, struggle, and perfection. Here’s what I’ve learned from each style of slow and raw yoga:
Yin Yoga
While many confuse Yin Yoga with restorative yoga, a true Yin class offers the space and stillness to explore stress and resilience through extended stretches near the limits of range of motion. A Yin Yoga practice offers a place to step into bodily sensations, experience deep physicality, and stay there. The noise of movement is silenced, allowing practitioners to sit with challenge, thereby transforming their relationship to movement.
Restorative Yoga
Gaitling explains that restorative yoga can provide a sense of freedom from re-experiencing the past or worrying about future possibilities, which are common symptoms of trauma. “Restorative yoga gives you the opportunity to develop a sense of safety in your body by focusing on the present moment and your current feelings,” she says. This experience, she explains, counters the tendency to re-experience events that have happened in the past or engage in fear-based worries about future dangers.
This supported rest practice allows people to feel safe in their bodies. Gaitling has found that restorative yoga is less likely than more strenuous styles of yoga to result in the kind of high-effort coping that can result when ableism is an issue. “I believe that a restorative yoga practice dispels the idea that yoga is for a certain body type,” she says.
Yoga Nidra
Yoga Nidra, a state of deep rest that connects meditation with blissful states, is part of the magic of yoga nidra, explains author Arora. Yoga – Legacy of the Ancients, Vision of Tomorrow“One of the side effects of yoga nidra is that it increases the distance between the senses and the limited mind and reduces the distance between the heart and consciousness,” she says. “This is truly a free country,” she says.
Freedom may feel foreign in a traditionally marginalized reality: Sure, you have the knowledge that you live in a place without war, but seeing people who live and love like you being targeted by violence can make you feel like freedom is only for people who are different from you.
“Yoga Nidra cultivates and awakens the truth that we are always worthy of support, ease, deep rest, and self-giving,” explains Yoga Nidra guide and author Tracey Stanley. Radiant Rest: Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation and Awakened Clarity and Your Illuminated Self: Sacred Yoga Practices and Rituals for Remembering Who You AreStanley joins the voices of teachers like Octavia Raheem, Tricia Hershey, and Dr. Parker in advocating deep rest as both a revolutionary act and an opportunity for revelation.
In my ideal yoga world, all members of traditionally marginalized communities would practice quiet, meditative styles of yoga, and in that same world, yoga teachers and studios would be more conscious of how to hold space for these students. Opportunities to experience sensation, embodiment, rest, and spaciousness are precisely the right practices for those of us for whom stillness is not only foreign, but historically criminal.
