Yoga For Grief Support
  • Home
  • Classes
    • Group Yoga For Grief Support >
      • FAQ
    • Online Yoga Programs >
      • January-April-Schedule
      • Navigating Grief
      • FAQ and Policies
    • Guided Audio Practice - Online >
      • FAQ and Policies
    • Workshops and Speaking Engagements
    • Mentorship for Yoga Teachers
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Newsletter
  • About
  • Contact

It's Actually Called Corpse Pose:  Savasana, The Art and Science of Relaxation

6/10/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
"By remaining motionless for some time and keeping the mind still while you are fully conscious, you learn to relax. This conscious relaxation invigorates and refreshes both body and mind. But it is much harder to keep the mind than the body still. Therefore, this apparently easy posture in one of the most difficult to master." B.K.S. Iyengar.


I started this post about savasana to be a short newsletter. Quickly, though, I realized that there is so much to this pose than it appears and my "short newsletter" has become multiple blog posts. How? You may ask. How can a pose that is 'just laying there' require so many words and explanations?

There are a few reasons for this:
  1. There many misconceptions about savasana. It's importance is often skimmed over in a yoga class. By some savasana is seen as the boring part of a yoga class, by other's it's nap time. It's so much more than that. 
  2. In savasana, the practitioner is required to pay close attention to the body and mind, which one could argue is present in every yoga pose, but in savasana with the body being still and passive, the mind is more apt to run amok. For some, savasana is anxiety producing due to the influx of emotion and racing thoughts once the body becomes still. 
  3. Relaxation, on a broader scale, is elusive in our culture. In a society that won't stop talking and moving, we have become habitually tense and avoidant of situations that may cause an influx of emotion and racing thoughts.
  4. Savasana is one pose that highlights and embodies the true heart and purpose of yoga. There is a lot to say about that...

I'll explore all of these reasons in this series, but I'll start with one of the primary misconceptions:

It's actually called Corpse Pose ​

This one may not be a misconception, but a misnomer. Calling savasana a relaxation pose is accurate, but 'relaxation' is not the direct translation of the word savasana and as such, it doesn’t really capture it’s entire meaning. 

I am guilty of side-stepping this actual translation and purposefully calling it "Relaxation Pose." I do this because I am sensitive to the fact that it might be a trigger for some people in the grief support group, especially without more context about the deeper meaning of the name.   

As with other aspects of grief and emotional awareness, authenticity and calling something what it actually is can be  helpful. So I explored it, which is how this post came to be.

I found what B.K.S. Iyengar says about savasana in Light on Pranayama to be enlightening: 
“Sava in Sanskrit means a corpse and asana a posture. Thus Savasana is a posture that simulates a dead body, and evokes the experience of remaining in a state as in death and of ending the heart-aches and the shocks that the flesh is heir to. It means relaxation, and therefore recuperation. It is not simply lying on one’s back with a vacant mind and gazing, nor does it end in snoring. It is the most difficult of yogic asanas to perfect, but it is also the most refreshing and rewarding.”
"Ending the heart-aches and shocks the the flesh is heir to."

I know that for myself, I was always oddly perplexed that I was doing 'corpse pose' when death was so front and centre in my life. The way I reconciled the name corpse pose with practicing it after a death, is that it was a practice of complete and total surrender (surrender: to cease resistant to).

I found it easy to cease resistance to the fatigue I felt in my body and to slip into the stillness and silence of savasana. Mentally surrendering to the reality that grief eradicated my life as I knew it felt congruent because so many parts of me died when Cam died. The hard part was the SURGE of emotion that would spontaneously arise, making the supposed-surrender all the more complex and at times seemingly impossible. It did not feel like 'relaxation' as suggested by the Iyengar in the quote above.

He says, "remaining in a state as in death and of ending the heart-aches and the shocks that the flesh is heir to." Before you can end the heart-aches and shocks (maybe 'live-well-with' is a better word than end?) you must experience them in a way that integrates the heart-ache and shock reality into our life. Feel it to heal it.

When Iyengar says "ending" the heart-aches and shocks" I don't think he means permanently ending. We are human after all, and of course, heart-aches and shocks will happen throughout life whether we want them to or not. I think he means that in between the surges of thought and emotions there are moments of complete and total stillness that are void of thought, emotion and suffering. It is in these moments that you can truly relax.

The practice of savasana is to cultivate the ability to stay conscious of everything that is going on within you so that you can learn how to extend those spaces of stillness a little longer each time. Becoming still in the body and witnessing the impermanence and  flow of thoughts and emotions is the doorway to conscious relaxation. More broadly, savasana teaches you how to manage life's ups and downs with less reactivity and more equanimity.

Another way to look at corpse pose is seeing it as the conscious awareness of death, and how parts of you and your life "die" everyday, especially after a major loss. Savasana, as a daily (or often) practice is quite literally, the practice of dying everyday;  letting go of what we can let go of (like the constant and sometimes unhelpful chatter of the mind, for example) and appreciating some of the deeper chords that link us to life (awareness of the preciousness and fragility of life and relationships).

​At the end of savasana when you slowly  begin to move your body and deepen your breath, you are symbolically "beginning again." This idea of continually re-opening or re-beginning is a major part of integrating your yoga practice into your life and feeling recuperated from it.  

“We die a little every day and by degrees we’re reborn into different men, older men in the same clothes, with the same scars.”
― Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns
​
Regardless of what happens in savasana - you sleep, you cry, you think your head off - doing it with awareness and the intention to practice conscious relaxation is the most important part.

I hope you've enjoyed my take on corpse pose and I'd love to hear what you think. Feel free to comment below. 


Stay tuned for the next post where I will look more deeply at savasana as a practice.  
 



Through out this post I've referenced Light on Pranyama by B.K.S Iyengar. There is a wonderful chapter in the book on savasana and I recommend it as a resource. 
Another one of my favourite books which looks at relaxation in a broader, more practical "off the mat" sense is Sabbath by Wayne Muller.

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Get new posts by email:
    Powered by follow.it

    Author

    Sandy Ayre
    Occupational Therapist
    Yoga Instructor
    Death and Grief Studies Certificate

    Sandy offers in-person Yoga for Grief Support classes in Edmonton, and world-wide online. 

    ​Learn more about her here.


    Categories

    All
    About The Class
    Authenticity
    Book Recommendations
    Care-givers
    Coping With Grief
    Guest Posts
    Inspiration
    Mind Body Connection
    Mind-Body Connection
    Music
    Nature
    Prayer Flags
    Spirituality
    Taking Yoga Off The Mat
    Videos
    Yoga Philosophy
    Yoga Poses


    Archives

    December 2022
    March 2022
    August 2021
    May 2021
    December 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    June 2017
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    December 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    October 2013
    September 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011

Classes

Group Yoga for Grief Support
Online Yoga Sessions
Guided Audio Practice
Workshops

Helpful Info

Resources
Blog
Newsletter

About Us

About Sandy
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
© Yoga for Grief Support in Edmonton
  • Home
  • Classes
    • Group Yoga For Grief Support >
      • FAQ
    • Online Yoga Programs >
      • January-April-Schedule
      • Navigating Grief
      • FAQ and Policies
    • Guided Audio Practice - Online >
      • FAQ and Policies
    • Workshops and Speaking Engagements
    • Mentorship for Yoga Teachers
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Newsletter
  • About
  • Contact