The Year of Yin

2023 is the year of yin. I knew that this was going to be the year of yin personally. A gentler year than the ones past. It had to be. What I didn’t know is that collectively it would be the year of yin. Talk about trending. Doing anything collectively does make sense at this point. I mean we have collectively participated in and/or observed the world spinning into an oblivion for the last couple of years so does it make sense, yes, sense it does make that we would yin collectively.

I didn’t know it was official until a friend of mine sent me a screenshot of an article she had read about the Chinese New Year and Chinese Zodiac. She highlighted a part in the article that said “That makes 2023 the Year of the Water Rabbit. Gui Mao Rabbit year is quite a special year when all the elements in a year are yin.” She wanted to make sure I paid extra special attention to the yin part and so she circled that word and sent it to me.

First off, lets talk about friends who love you and not only are they as excited as you are for all your new amazing beginnings but that they screenshot, highlight, and circle the word that in so many ways (connected to many other things) has made your past year worth it. Then they send it to you because they believe in you and see you. Enough can’t be said for this friendship and the love and appreciation I have for her.

2nd, the elements of yin,

What is the Chinese zodiac forecasting? The article (which will be biblio’d below - read it) says “The Year of Water Rabbit is going to be a gentler year. We’ll have time to take a breather. We’ve been in a tunnel for the last few years, and the light is getting bigger now.”

Words that will put you in the mindset of Yin: cultivate, dissolve, gently, ground, open, soften, earth, hidden, calm, still.

Now you can’t yin without yang and the article speaks to other rules that may apply and of course there is the light with the dark but that is where I could come in an introduce a yoga aspect. Imagine being able to embody a regular yin yoga practice and truly embrace 2023 and beyond. Don’t just imagine it, come do it.

There is so much that can be said about Yin Yoga. There is so much that has been said about it and figuring out how to summarize it has been a task that I haven’t taken lightly and I have probably been in my head too much in regards to it all. I think some of that comes from still being in process and in training and wanting to relay all of the information I am learning, to you all. The other part is wanting to convey to you how delicious a regular guided or not, Yin practice can be.

My Heart Says:

Yin is a practice that allows us to pause and nourish ourselves from the inside out. It encourages us to breath and to honor. It expects us to explore the spaciousness in our bodies, in our minds, in our lives. Allowing us the time to tune in to our senses, and to listen. It allows us to feel. It does for me anyway and it absolutely can for you too.

The facts:

From Paul Grilley, A practice that focuses on exercising muscles and moving blood is yang. A practice that focuses on connective tissue is yin. When we are moving and bending our joints doing yoga postures, both muscles and connective tissue are being stretched. The muscles are yang because they are soft and elastic, while the connective tissue is yin because they are stiff and inelastic. All forms of yang exercises, such as running, weightlifting, and swimming, alternately contract and relax muscles. Muscle tissues respond very well to rhythmic yang exercises. Exercises that create a gentle traction of the connective tissue are yin. It is not muscular strength that gives us the feeling of ease and lightness in the body, it is the flexibility of the joints. Yin yoga postures gently stretch and rehabilitate the connective tissues that form our joints. If we want to maintain our joints flexibility, we must exercise them but we should not exercise them like muscles, we must exercise them in a yin way. Balance baby!

Dense connective tissues do not respond to rhythmic stresses the way muscles do. Connective tissues resist brief stresses but slowly change when a moderate stress is maintained for three to five minutes. With persistent practice the fibers of connective tissue will grow and realign to allow for a greater range of motion. Also, learning to relax in poses helps us to identify and release tensions that are deep within us not just in the skeletal muscle.

There is truly so much that can be said here but what I want to communicate to you the most is to come try it out. Just come and see for yourself how it makes you feel. Come into a pose, feel what you feel, find stillness, a pause, explore your edge, nourish, and then receive and restore.

Article: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/chinese-zodiac-predictions-2023-hnk-intl/index.html

Book: Yin Yoga Principles & Practice by Paul Grilley