Curling Up: A Cozy Yoga Theme

happy mid-Winter

“Home isn’t where you’re from, it’s where you find light when all grows dark.”

-Pierce Brown

Spiraling your attention inward

One of the greatest challenges of motherhood is being able to notice what’s going on within when there is so much to attend to around me. I can’t afford to go super deep into a yoga or meditation practice with the kids in the next room because I will almost certainly be interrupted; but then I also don’t have a lot of spare time without them around.

It might seem, then, that there just isn’t any meaningful time for yoga.

But there is, if we modify the practices to suit our busy lives. The more we practice taking just a few minutes to go inward — one pose, one breath, one mantra, one grounding thought — the easier it becomes. If we’re too stressed, though, slowing down and using our sense of interoception can feel impossible. Lowering our baseline stress takes some focused effort (I’ll touch upon this in a post later this month). Even after we’ve lowered our baseline stress, switching modes from our busy day to a moment of pause takes practice. Over time and with some motivation, it can become more automatic.

This doesn’t happen overnight, but I promise, it’s worth it. The more we can do this, the more our lives become yoga without having to step onto a yoga mat.

for example, here I am having a yoga moment on the couch:)

Our seasonal focus: curling in

If you’re of the mindset that yoga must be intense and sweaty, I invite you to take a moment to consider the cozier side of the practice. I’m not saying you should abandon hot yoga, especially if you find it energizing in the midst of the cold, dark winter. All I’m saying is that we can also use this practice to rest, nurture ourselves, and take a moment to reflect. 

Don’t you get that instinct to hunker down during the winter? I know I do, especially since moving to a colder climate. Of course, some of you mamas might be in the Southern Hemisphere, where it’s summer now. Even so, every mama needs high quality rest no matter the season, right?

There’s another reason I chose this theme of spiraling inward: today is an old holiday known as Imbolc, which means ‘in the belly.’ It’s a Celtic holy day to celebrate the goddess Brigid, and is also celebrated in some Christian traditions as Candlemas. You may be wondering what this all has to do with yoga. These turns in the season, which include special days like Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox, serve as markers in the year when we can attune to the changes in nature. As humans, we are part of nature and connecting the seasonal cycles is another way to fine-tune our yoga practice and bring more awareness into our lives in general.

Many mamas come to yoga for secular reasons, and that’s totally fine. Maybe you (want to) practice yoga to support your physical and mental health. There’s no problem with that, but I bet if you stick with the practice, you’ll feel something on all levels of being: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Yoga philosophy offers us a map of these layers of our being and they’re called koshas (which can be translated as sheath or layer). I wrote a bit about these levels of ourselves in a post last October which you can link to here.

So whether or not you call yourself spiritual, religious, atheist, or agnostic, nature is a tangible force that we can all connect to, and it’s something that contains all of us. Starhawk — activist, author, and teacher of earth-based religion — put it well: “People often ask me if I believe in the Goddess. I reply, ‘Do you believe in rocks?’ It is extremely difficult for most Westerners to grasp the concept of manifest deity. The phrase ‘believe in’ itself implies that we cannot know the Goddess, that she is somehow intangible, incomprehensible. But we do not believe in rocks - we may see them, touch them, dig them out of our gardens, or stop small children from throwing them at each other. We know them; we connect with them. In the Craft, we do not believe in the Goddess - we connect with her…”

So, whatever you believe, whatever your values or religion, I offer some touchpoints for where our connection to nature and the seasons is relevant to yoga practice and motherhood and this newsletter is both a crossroads between yoga and mothering as well as between yoga and earth-based spirituality. Of course, it’s always up to you how you connect with these teachings, but I just know that I must be authentic and share my own experience here.

But back to Imbolc and how we connect to this special day in a yogic way: February 2nd is halfway between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. Ever since Winter Solstice, daylight has been increasing slowly and we’ve been getting closer to spring with each passing day. If you could imagine the energy of moving from winter to spring, you might picture a rising dynamic or a sense of opening up or spiraling out. So why would I suggest spiraling inward at this time?

I invite you to spiral in and curl up into the cozier aspects of yoga now because it is too easy to get overly excited and look too much into the future (spring) so that we forget where we are now (it’s still winter, no matter what the groundhog says:). Why hurry? Slow down, mamas, rest, take a breather, and receive the gifts of the season. We may not hibernate like some animals do, but just as in menstruation and pregnancy, it can be so valuable and nourishing to just slow down, rest, and enjoy some quiet time. 

How do we bring this theme into our bodies? Let’s revisit the concept of bhavana.

here is a more active form of ‘curling inward’ - cat pose. This is a great position for breathing into the back of the ribcage (and so are the other poses in the two photos above).

Bringing it into the bodymind: bhavana

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

-Albert Einstein

Yoga is a multi-dimensional practice. The poses are important but only if you infuse them with conscious breath, focus, intention, and awareness. Sometimes we infuse our poses with feeling and vision and that’s where the practice of bhavana comes in.

I keep mentioning bhavana and I swear, I’ll write a post on it soon; until then, here’s an article about it.  Some of you may already be acquainted with the idea of it, but for now I’ll keep it simple and say that if we want to infuse our yoga practice with an air of coziness, we’ve gotta use our imaginations. 

So I wonder, what is the bhavana (feeling, intention, quality) of curling up, or spiraling inward? Aside from just being a more cozy vibe of yoga, sometimes going inward isn’t all that comfy; sometimes it can be overwhelming, frustrating, or seem like a waste of time (after all, you’re a busy mama, right? Can’t afford to go inward when your kid is about to trash the living room or dump water all over the floor!).

On a physical level, curling inward means stretching the back of the body and breathing into all those muscles along the spine and the back of the ribcage. It might literally be a form of navel-gazing as in the cat pose photo above, where we also engage the core. Or, it might be more restful as in the child’s pose photo at the beginning of this post (though my daughter did feel a little too heavy on my back:).

On a mental and emotional level, curling inward might mean observing your thoughts and feelings, noticing sensations in the body, cultivating self love. As I mentioned before, sometimes turning inward can be uncomfortable if we’re going through a rough patch or if we’re stressed. Let’s make sure that if we find some frustration or resistance to bringing our attention inside, we bring in that self-compassion or we take little breaks here and there:). If you find this process difficult, then shorter yoga sessions might be best for you (not to mention, it’s so much easier for a busy mama to find 10-20 minutes to practice than an entire hour).

my son a few years ago, curling up for some cozy couch yoga.

What’s Next

Next week I’ll share a post focused on a specific pose. For the last two posts on yoga pose focus, go here and here. In these posts, I give some of the nitty gritty on alignments and modifications and I also weave in our seasonal theme:) This time around, I’d like to ask you all, is there a specific yoga pose you want me to dive deep on next Friday? Bonus if you can tie it into our theme of curling inward. Don’t be shy! Comment below with a pose you’d like me to explore with you.

And in keeping with our weekly schedule, the Friday after next, I’ll post about a breathing practice. Again, please comment below if there is a particular breathing practice you would love to have me write about here:)

Until then, what kinds of cozy self-care practices do you love? Do you find any particular yoga practices cozy or comforting? What helps you turn inward with self-love, curiosity, and wonder? Enough from me now, I want to hear from you all so that I can better serve you all in the coming posts.

And as always, if you know someone who would enjoy this community, please share. The more happy, relaxed mamas we have in the world, the better!