February Savasana Challenge

#58 Drip, Drip, Drip, the Bucket Fills

Two weeks ago Brad and I took a winter vacation to Oaxaca, Mexico. It was a big push for us to get ready to leave Santa Fe, mainly because we needed to get everything ready for our little senior dog and his favorite doggy sitter who would be staying with him for the week.

Our house is quite small; still it took us two full days to clean every room of the house, change the sheets, vacuum the rug and shampoo the dog. Feeling virtuous, I even made the extra effort to thoroughly clean every nook and cranny of the refrigerator!

Our wake-up time was 3 a.m. in order to catch the first of the two-leg trip to Oaxaca. After checking into our hotel room, we both flopped down on the bed. Nothing needed to be said but there was a joint sense of relief. We made it, our dog was safe and we didn’t have to clean anything today.

After some minutes of letting go into the comfort of being horizontal, we both fell into a deep and satisfying nap. It was that kind of sleep where you are surprised when you wake up because you didn’t even know you had fallen asleep.

That was the moment I realized Brad and I were both lying in Savasana, the last yoga pose of every yoga class. We had fallen into this pose naturally, lying on our backs, feet apart, arms by our sides. The amazing thing is that when we woke up we were still in a well-organized savasana, the only variation was that we were holding hands. It is a tried-and-true relaxation method which showed up just when we really needed it.

Over the years of teaching yoga, I have seen many people fall asleep in savasana. It’s not the purpose of the pose, but it is not unusual for a yogi to relax so much that their savasana becomes a delicious yoga nap. The more interesting thing is that in every case, the yogi stays in their perfectly aligned savasana. They don’t toss and turn. They still experience the power of a perfectly aligned savasana: deep rejuvenating, refreshing rest.

Now that I’m back home that ease of dropping into rest has vanished. Due to the looming deadline for the final manuscript of my upcoming book, Long Life Yoga, the ideas in my mind are tumbling over each other to get on the page. Add to that some other personal concerns weighing on me and I’m already feeling as if I never had a vacation at all.

Fortunately, Substack suggested that I rerun my post from last January which just happened to be about the value of practicing savasana. That’s always a good idea but especially in the quiet doldrums of winter.

Savasana is said to be the most important pose in yoga because it assimilates all the work that came before. It’s like digestion, taking in what is beneficial and letting go of everything else.

Inspired by my own 2024 post, I’ve decided to commit to practicing savasana every day in February.

Do you want to join me? Let’s do it! We can connect on my Substack Chat so keep an eye out for a notification on that.

Throughout February I’ll give you tips on Chat for how to get the most out of your savasana practice.

Here’s more on why and how to do Savasana.

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A Brilliant Prescription

In 2018 I traveled from central VA to the Himalayan Institute in Honesdale, PA to participate in a small yoga conference hosted by Yoga International.

The day before I left I went to my last in a series of physical therapy sessions to help me regain strength and confidence after my second hip replacement that year. I was feeling good except for a weird pain, a feeling of something being stuck, in my right foot.

My PT said, “OK, lie down on the table and I will do some myofascial release work.” He had previously applied this gentle, nourishing therapy on me so I was surprised when he said to tap on the table if I felt pain higher than a 10. Almost immediately after he touched my foot the pain was a 20 and I started hitting the table and saying, “Ow Ow Ow!”

He stopped pressing and sent me home.

Within an hour, my foot and ankle were swollen up to three times normal size. I elevated and iced but it didn’t really help. I laid awake all night worrying. The swelling had not subsided by morning.

But, being a warrior-type who is controlled by my work ethic, off I went to join the other presenters: Sally Kempton, Doug Keller, Gary Kraftsow and Rod Stryker for a weekend of teaching. My most well attended class turned out to be the the outdoor walking meditation. It wasn’t hard for me to pay close attention to every (painful) footstep as we slowly climbed up and down the rolling hills of the Institute.

It had never occurred to me to cancel. It was my habit to push through exhaustion, insomnia, minor and major physical discomfort in order to show up and keep my commitments. Besides, I was also scheduled to stay for four more days and film a large tranch of content for Yoga International; something like 15 yoga classes, two workshops and a 5-part meditation series.

My dear friend, Jennifer, was with me the whole time and she was a great support. She made sure that I took every opportunity to lie down with my legs up the wall, elevating my poor foot, which was very slightly shrinking back toward right size. (It actually took over a year for it to return to normal and be pain-free.)

On our last day at the Institute, Jennifer suggested we make appointments at the onsite Ayurvedic Center. Turned out the doctor was in and so I got to meet the wonderful Dr. Carrie.

She listened carefully to my story—two hip replacements in one year and now a big, swollen foot. I told her that I didn’t recognize my body anymore. And I was uncomfortable with the weight gain caused from having my mobility restricted for so long.

Dr. Carrie said, “You have been in chronic pain. And pain is stress. And stress causes your cortisol to spike. And cortisol causes weight gain.”

She gently stroked my foot as she said, “Do savasana every day. This will downregulate your nervous system and lower your cortisol.”

What a brilliant prescription! She didn’t say rest. Or take a nap. Or work less. Or change anything about how I eat, or move or work or play. Just do a savasana once a day.

Dr. Carrie understood that I knew how to do savasana. It’s not the same thing as just lying down. It is a specific yoga asana with alignment principles, philosophic principles, yoga dos and yoga don’ts.

She also understood that savasana is the foundational position for a body of asanas known as Restorative Yoga. Restorative Yoga has one main purpose and that is to help us recover our lost ability to rest. If done properly, it promises better rejuvenation than sleeping which can be quite active, at times, or choppy or even disturbing. Restorative Yoga rests your body, your mind and the systems of the body—nervous, digestive, reproductive—that require energy.

Like all asanas, there is an organizing principle and a container principle for savasana.

The organizing principle refers to how you arrange your body so that the energetic circuitry of your body is balanced and unobstructed. This is how to create the causes and conditions for the most beneficial experience of savasana.

Before you begin, gather up:

• 1-3 blankets

• 1 eye pillow or a scarf

Fold one blanket into a small rectangle and place that where your head will be.

Roll up another blanket and place that where your knees will be.

Lie down on your back on a warm floor, rug, yoga mat or your bed. Make sure the folded blanket is under your head and your neck, but not under your shoulders.

Arrange the rolled-up blanket so it is placed under your knees.

Separate your feet so they are slightly wider apart than your hips.

Cover up with the third blanket so you stay warm while you are resting.

Place the eye pillow or scarf over your eyes.

Place your arms by your sides, about a foot out from your body, palms up.

Now you are in the container of the savasana. You have only one job to do: be receptive, which, in yoga, is the opposite of active.

Dr. Carrie recognized that I needed to practice being receptive. You can’t push your body to heal.

You can’t magically drop into the “rest and digest” effects of the parasympathetic nervous system. Nor can you force your sympathetic nervous system to come out of “fight, flight or freeze.”

But since hard work is our mandated cultural habit and associated with rewards, we can get stuck there. The Tibetan word for practice is Gom, which actually means “a process of getting familiar.” The practice of savasana reminds us that there are just as many rewards when we become as familiar with receptivity as we are with activity.

So I did that. Every day I got on my bed and got familiar with savasana. I completely dropped into it. I didn’t meditate or plan or feel guilty or wish for anything to be different.

I remembered my guru saying that the mind is like the sky, without center and without boundary. So I let my mind float like a kite on a balmy day.

Just as I did, you get to decide when you are done with your savasana. At first you might not stay for longer than a few minutes. Eventually you will begin to trust the container of savasana and feel comfortable staying there for longer. Whenever you are ready, gently roll to your right side and slowly sit up.

Take a moment or two to observe the effects of your savasana practice for that day. I often found that my mind was just as refreshed as my body. My creative juices were fed. Savasana did offer many rewards: it was a therapy, a processing, a coming home. The sense of uncoiling felt like a fresh beginning.

As I write this on the last day of January, 2024, I remember how so many of us jumped into the new year with a bang. Ideas, goals, classes to take, books to write—lots of fresh beginnings!

But it’s still winter, the time for hibernating, resting and digesting. Maybe practicing savasana will offer you the balance and ballast that actually helps those active goals come to life.

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Practice Opportunities

* If you are a paid subscriber to Drip, you are invited to my first paid subscriber-only online event. It will be Sunday, February 23 at 12 noon ET for 30 minutes.

I will give a brief dharma talk, and we will meditate together. Q & A.

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Join Lifting the Gaze Sangha

Join Lifting the Gaze! We meet 3x/month for meditation and discussion. In February we will be discussing Confession of a Buddhist Atheist, so this is the most perfect moment to join this sangha.

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Mindfulness Meditation Mini-Retreats!

Sign up for one or go big with your commitment to practice and sign up for all THREE for a discount.

March 24-28

30 min/day
7-7:30 pm ET

July 14-18

45 min/day
12:15-1:00 pm ET

Dec 1-5

15 min/day
12:15-12:30 pm ET

Paid subscribers, and Moon and Stars sangha members: You can redeem your $40 discount pricing using the button at the bottom of each retreat’s registration page.

Also, you can purchase all 3 retreats for $120:

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This retreat is already half-full, only 8 spots left!

This retreat is open to everyone! Our practice will focus primarily on sitting and walking mindfulness meditation, sustainable yoga, and restorative yoga. Yoga props will be available in the yoga studio and modifications will be offered for everyone. Each morning will include a short dharma talk and group discussion.