I wanted to add more to the ‘Drop the Rock’ idea because I started thinking about how this shows up on the mat. When we haul rocks around it literally causes tension in our bodies - we can feel the effects of the weight in our shoulders, neck, back and hips. It’s no accident that when I do a good hip opening session I feel 20 pounds lighter. It’s like I’ve managed to let go of a heavy weight that’s so familiar I don’t notice it on a daily basis.

And that’s why dropping our rocks is so hard. Someone said to me once “Well that’s me, I’m a worrier” and I thought - why would you want to hold so hard to that identity? But that’s just me, I’m not a big-time worrier and it doesn’t look like any fun at all. But we cling to what’s familiar, even if it doesn’t serve us. Thankfully the yoga mat is a safe place to practice dropping our rocks. It can help us practice letting go so that off the mat we can ask - What would this look like if I wasn’t a worrier?

So what yoga rocks do we hold onto? What about our expectations of what we’re going to do in a pose before we’ve even checked it out with our body? What about comparing ourselves to others? What identities do we bring to the mat? Are we likely to say ” I’m ’strong’ so I’ll take the most strenuous option even though my body is screaming for mercy with only 4 hours sleep-time last night”?

Letting go is important because the rocks we hold onto are like barriers between us and the present moment. They’re like panes of glass between us and the ability to freshly experience what’s happening. When we let our yoga be about pre-conceived expectations it keeps us apart from the sensory experience of each pose. Erich Schiffmann calls it the “feeling-tone” of the pose.

It’s all that subtle sensory information we can open to when we’re not clutching our rocks for dear life. When we let go we can listen to the muscles of our back leg in Warrior 2 humming in A sharp. We can really take in the sweetness of a juicy Forward Bend. Triangle turns the brightest shade of blue. And we melt into Child’s Pose like Pistachio ice cream.