The Paradox of Effortlessness: The Importance of Going against the Flow in Yoga

Now there is a lot of nuance to unpack here. Ultimately any duality is an illusion and the nature of reality is non-dualist. However, this concept of going with versus against the flow is helpful.

Your nature as a life-form is one that is constantly moving towards healing. If you cut yourself, the body immediately starts to regenerate. Even psychologically, whatever thought patterns and habits you’ve developed were initially an attempt to survive. 

So on the one hand, you could see yoga as a practice of aligning with the body’s natural orientation towards healing. How can we work with the superpower that is being alive to amplify our healing abilities through refining our consciousness?

On the other hand, you can see that as a human it is easy to fall into certain habits that do not serve our journey towards healing and wholeness. We sit in the same ways, maybe eat or drink certain things habitually that don’t make us feel good, we default to what is easy and pleasurable in the short term. 

So in a yoga practice, we do the opposite! We put ourselves in positions that are very much out of our natural rhythms and flow. There’s no reason a full wheel (the pose in this video) would come up in my daily life. During yoga, we practice adding consciousness to body parts and thought patterns that are easy to go unnoticed in our daily lives. 

For example, If I told you to lift your arms up, there’s a way that you could do this that would feel very natural. There’s nothing wrong with that. However during a yoga class, there would be no benefit to lifting your arms up in the way that you always do in a fashion that is easy for you. 

So I might cue: “Reach your hands up, look up, bring your fingers together to touch, palms to touch, lower your shoulders away from your ears, straighten your elbows, bring your hands back further behind your head, tighten your belly, strengthen your legs, feel the 4 corners of your feet on the floor, breath into your rib cage.”

And then you would start to feel some struggle. You would be going against the flow. Your muscles would be engaged in a way that is building shoulder strength and mobility simultaneously while bringing conscious awareness to your entire body. 

Don’t get me wrong! I am a big fan of restorative and yin yoga. I’m also a Yoga Nidra guide, which is the yinnest of yin yogas. It’s important to practice surrender as much as we practice activation. Both of these aspects of our nature are key for living a long and full life that feels expansive and freeing. 

And depending on your temperament, you may need one of these styles more than the other. I know for me, practicing surrender and relaxation was life changing and necessary. Over-efforting can also result in injury, which I am no stranger to. 

I hope you’ll practice this balancing act with me at a yoga class here soon :) 

Also watch out for a yoga Nidra meditation I’ll be dropping on YouTube soon if:

• an effortless practice of rewiring your subconscious to lead you towards your deepest heart-felt purpose

• on autopilot

• and navigating the boundary of the conscious and unconscious mind

sounds appealing to you.

By Aleena Glinski