The Quiet Work of Staying

Stillness isn’t always peaceful.


Sometimes it’s where everything I’ve avoided begins to stir.

The ache behind my shoulder blades.

The stories tucked into the quiet.

The tension I didn’t realise I was holding until I tried to let go.

This is what yin yoga taught me.


Not how to stretch.

Not how to hold a pose.


But how to stay.

Stay when my breath gets tight.

Stay when the stillness feels louder than movement.

Stay when I want to shift, fidget, get out, get on with it.

Yin taught me to listen to the edge.


To recognise the flicker of discomfort—not as something to fix, but something to feel.
To watch the rise of resistance without abandoning myself in it.

It showed me that discomfort has texture.


Sometimes sharp.
Sometimes dull.
Sometimes emotional.


And that when I soften around it, instead of bracing against it, it changes shape.
Maybe not right away. But eventually. Gently.

There is an honesty in discomfort.


It doesn’t pretend.


It asks for presence.


It asks for breath.

And it taught me:
Discomfort is not the enemy.
It’s the invitation.
To stay.
To feel.
To be in relationship with what is.

I didn’t know how often I left myself—subtly, unconsciously—until yin gave me time to notice.
Time to return.

Not with force, but with curiosity.

Not to push through, but to be with.

Now, when discomfort shows up—in practice, in life, in the middle of an ordinary day—I try to meet it the way yin taught me to.


With softness.

With breath.

With the quiet knowing that I don’t have to run from what’s hard.


I can stay.


I can listen.


And I can come back to myself, one breath at a time.