surrender and resistance

Can practicing yoga really help me find these two buzz words...surrender and resistance? What keeps me on the mat and what keeps me off the mat?


The question I have been living with this summer is how to surrender. How can our asana practice teach us to surrender? What in the world can kurmasana-toroise pose, (a pose I have historically found impossible), possibly teach me about surrendering?

It seems to me, the first step in surrendering is showing up. To begin talking about showing up, let’s think about the ways we resist showing up on our yoga mat. I’ll give you ten ways someone (maybe me) might resist showing up on the mat:

*I hit the alarm and think to myself….hmmm…today my yoga practice is going to be sleeping in…I’m just listening to my body and I need more rest, not more asana practice.

*Ahh, afternoon practice. Shouldn’t I go to the studio and clean? I do need to run to Kinko’s. I probably need to run to the store and get stuff for dinner. Wasn’t I going to return calls about the upcoming schedule? Oh yeah, I think I’ll meet my friend for a quick cup of coffee and then practice.

* I am home, post coffee, post grocery store. Wow, it’s already time to start dinner. Maybe today will be my day off. I can still get six days in this week.

* The alarm goes off and ick, I ate too much last night for dinner. Morning practice is going to feel terrible, I think I’ll practice after work and before dinner.

* The phone rings at work. It’s a friend calling from out of town and wants to visit tonight. He invites us to dinner, hmmm, I’ll practice later.

* After returning home, believing I would have a very gentle-before-you-go-to-bed practice, I sit down for a few minutes. I think my food needs to digest. I get hooked into a great book I have been reading (likely a yoga book)-does it count to read about yoga asanas? I remember Grey’s Anatomy is on television and I have such a crush on Dr. McDreamy...hmm….I’ll get up in the morning.

* Whew-my muscles are so tight! I have been off my mat for a few days in a row. Ugh, don’t want to get back on my mat. It’s going to feel terrible..five surya namaskara a’s and five surya namaskara b’s. I’ll die. I can’t physically do it…I could modify…hmm. Tomorrow.

*Ya know, my back has been a bit sore since that workshop. A few too many backbends. Twelve wheels in a row. What was that teacher thinking? Up and back out of wheel five times. Who was he kidding? I am sure lots of rest will help me heal. I probably don’t need to be doing any asana practice…hmm…I am sure there are asanas that could help my back heal…but, I could try total rest. My friend who tore his Achilles has been practicing in a chair…hmm, I wonder if lot’s of savasana counts as practice?

* The yoga room in our house is a mess. It’s also the guest room where no one every stays. I have got to get that cleaned up before I practice. Really, it only needs about fifteen minutes of work. I could hang up the clothes I threw on the futon and then practice. Hmm. After I clean up it will be time to go….

* I know it’s time for practice, but I have had a really hard day at work. I know practice is exactly what I need, but I don’t want to get on the mat. Practice will mean I will come face-to-face with how badly I am feeling. I don’t want to be with all of this anxiety or sadness or anger. Nope, can’t face it. Can’t be with it…too icky.


These are all thoughts, or fluctuations of the mind. If we identify with these fluctuations, we certainly won’t show up on our mat. This could and likely does carry over and we don’t show up for our life. In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, we learn that yoga is the cessastion of the fluctuations of thoughts. As stated in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali as interpreted by Mukunda Stiles (Chapter I, verse 2):

“Yoga is experienced in that mind which has ceased to identify itself with its vascillating waves of perception.”

Another way to say this is that the experience of yoga is when we have stopped identifying or believing thoughts like numbers one through ten. We could also see these specific fluctuations as resistance. Let’s take a closer look at number ten. Number ten is quite clearly what underlies most of, if not all, resistance in my life.

Are we resisting to what is happening in our lives? Are we resisting to emotions we experience? Are we resisting what is happening in this moment? What follows resistance?

Take a second and think back to a time when you were having a conflict with another person. Were you aware of your internal experience? Were you aware of the fluctuations of the mind? Imagine for a second you were aware of an intense experience of hatred, or anger. Now imagine that for some reason (likely conditioning) you believe the emotion you were experiencing was not an acceptable emotion. You tense up, freak out, try to control the situation, tighten up, swim upstream. This is resistance. There is anger or whatever emotion is arising. Will there be resistance or surrender? It seems important to distinguish between surrendering to an emotion and acting on it. Just because you experience anger, or whatever unwanted emotion is arising, doesn’t mean you have to act on it or out of it. Surrendering to the experience is another way of seeing we are never separate from what is, from the present moment.

Yoga practice can teach us (in my case over and over and over and over again) to first become aware of our physical experience on the mat and eventually the practice will lead us to become aware of what is inside. When we get on our mat to practice asanas or pranayama or meditiation, we have an opportunity to practice showing up for our life. Practicing Kurmasana gives me an opportunity to experience tight shoulders and tight hips. It also allows me to observe how I resist what is hard, to see how I resist what is not comfortable and how I resist what I believe to be impossible. I can watch my mind spin around in a great whirlwind about how I am never going to be able to do it, I am not good enough, thin enough, strong enough, open enough, tall enough, long limbed enough, open-hipped enough, experienced enough. I could also allow this five thousand year old tradition to teach me that my mind is doing this all the time, not just in kurmasana. What happens on the mat is a microcosm or laboratory of what is happening in the rest of our lives.

Showing up on the mat, especially for me in the morning, immediately gives me an opportunity to see resistance ( see numbers one through ten) and then practice surrendering to the fluctuations, rather than identifying with them. This is different than “giving in” to numbers one through ten, or giving in to the fluctuations that always arise in kurmasana. If I give in, I would never be on my mat and I would certainly never practice asanas that are difficult.

I can practice observing the fluctuations and then surrender to something bigger than myself. As I often say in class, I can use this time to recognize my pea sized brain is always connected to something bigger. Thank goodness! My pea brain, my self with a small “s”, this body with a personality, doesn’t have to and in reality, doesn’t control everything. Hmm. In fact, the idea that it controls anything is an illusion. I might try, I might pretend that I am in control, but without fail, this is swimming upstream. Talk about effortful.

As I practice surrendering, giving myself, my-self, over to the present moment, or to the universe, or to God, or to whatever you feel comfortable calling it, everything feels less effortful and remarkably, I show up. I show up and experience emotions I didn’t want, didn’t expect and didn’t ask to have. As I allow myself to experience this, something inevitably arises to remind me that I can float.

I am convinced it’s worth showing up on the mat and in the rest of life.

Now that is something to say Ahh about.


Check out Ami’s new favorite Yoga Sutra translation:
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali as interpreted by Mukunda Stiles
(ISBN 1-57863-201-3)