Yoga

Final Savasana

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Early yogis first created asanas to assist them with what they actually found important, which was their meditation practice. They hoped that by reaching physical exhaustion those distracting thoughts, the ones that throw all of us off our game while we’re trying to meditate, would cease to be an issue.

It’s easy to get caught up thinking about our asanas, improving upon our asanas, perfecting our asanas, which is why it’s worth remembering that asanas were always intended as a means to an end, not an end in themselves. The real end, meditation, is one that many of us ignore in our yoga practice. Final savasana is the perfect time to remember it.

All you really need to do is tweak your thinking slightly if you tend to feel like your practice has ended the moment you are instructed to go into corpse pose. Instead decide that your practice is just beginning. A lot of people get impatient, thinking about all their other responsibilities, ready to move on with their days and almost annoyed to be kept laying in savasana.

But if you can treat this period of time just like the early yogis did, as a chance for focused meditation where all of those usual distractions are minimized due to your body’s physical exhaustion, you’ll be receptive to those important messages from yourself to yourself that you haven’t heard yet. I know this to be true because I’ve had many clients tell me some of their most important insights came while they were lying on their mats, and I know it to be true because some of the most exciting ideas for my articles have bubbled up while I was lying on my mat, including the idea for this article.

Just change your perception, decide to be excited for final savanna instead of put out by it, and good things will happen. Let the thoughts and insights come. You don’t have to be thoughtless to be meditating. The real question is the quality of your thoughts, and a yoga practice that is so physically nourishing will set you up for thoughts that are nourishing too.

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