What if You Don’t Have to “Work On” It?

Each week I start my Yin yoga class with a ritual to cultivate community and sow seeds of intention.

I invite my students to share one-word statement of intention for what they’d like to receive or how they would like to feel at the end of their practice.

In a recent class, many students prefaced their “one word” by sharing that they wanted to “work on” or were “working on” that intention.

I am working on calmness.
I am working on peace.
I am working on joy.

This phrasing reveals why Yin can be so challenging: we’ve internalized the need to “work on” everything — even finding peace.

The Subtle Challenge of Yin Yoga

Yin yoga looks deceptively simple — maybe even a little boring.

You hold poses for an extended amount of time while supporting the body with props. It’s not about “stretching” muscle; yin targets the fascia and connective tissue, which require more “time under tension” to relax.

There’s not a lot of movement involved. You’re unlikely to break a sweat. It’s a quiet practice.

Energetically and spiritually, Yin is the practice of receiving.

Therein lies the challenge: that quiet allows space for thoughts to arise.

Yin asks us to be with whatever is causing our discomfort, to relax into it and allow it, rather than pushing through it.

Undoing the Conditioning to Fix Things

In a culture focused on doing, receiving is not an easy task. We are conditioned to take control, to push through the pain, to make things happen.

Personal-improvement culture reinforces this; it teaches us that there’s always something to improve, something to fix, something to work on.

As I remind my students every week, the practice of Yin is not about “working on” anything. Yin asks us to meet our point of resistance and allow what is there, to receive the medicine of stillness and non-doing. In this non-doing, those states we desire — which are already within us — have space to emerge.

Often the biggest discomfort in Yin is the discomfort of “not doing.”

Learning From the Body’s Wisdom

Consider the physical body and its systems: You don’t need to “work on” your breathing. Your body breathes on its own without your conscious involvement.

Similarly, you don’t “work on” your kidney function or the pumping of blood through your veins. The body takes care of these functions; you simply get out of the way and allow it to happen.

In the container of Yin yoga, we practice this allowing and receiving both in the structures of the physical body — how deep we can sink into poses — as well as on an emotional and spiritual level.

Your peace and calm are not things to “work on;” they are already present under the surface, waiting for you to allow them to emerge.

Beyond the Mat

The big leap is to consider that the same can also be true for things you are “working on” in the material realm — whether that’s the flexibility of the physical body or a tangible work goal.

One of the insights that arrives after much practice of Yin yoga is that this concept of allowing and receiving could apply to everything we hope to create or achieve.

That doesn’t mean we just sit back all the time and “let things happen.” In material matters there is necessarily some active participation on our part.

But perhaps we can reduce the struggle of our effort when we allow ourselves moments to receive and discover what is already happening.