Stillness Is a Practice

What yoga taught me about rest, creativity, and making space for the next idea

Savasana is sometimes called the most difficult yoga pose because it asks you to clear your mind and do nothing.

When I first started practicing yoga, I didn’t understand that. I was drawn to the more physically challenging poses—the ones that required strength, flexibility, and focus. I wanted to push my body further, to lean into the poses that felt difficult. At the end of each class, I’d be the first to roll up my mat and leave.

Then one day, as I rushed out of the room, my mentor stopped me and said, “I see you are neglecting the most important part of this practice. Rest.”

A case for rest in a productive world

Rest is not something that comes easily to me. My mind races. My body wants to move. I have to keep trying, over and over, to settle—to let my mind relax. I have to resist the urge to let guilt about non-production creep in.

I don’t think I’m alone here.

I think many of us live in a constant state of unrest. The busier we become, the harder it is to slow down.

This is also true for my writing.

I took most of the month of July off from writing. I went to the mountains, sat by a lake with my morning tea, listened to loons, and watched the sun rise and set (pictured above ❤️).

For once, I didn’t turn the experience into something productive. I didn’t try to make it useful (granted, I was totally burnt out from moving but still…)

Not gonna lie, the feeling that I “should be writing” bubbled up, but I tried not to dwell on it. And that paid off: resting allowed new ideas for my writing to come to the surface.

I laughed all those years ago when my yoga mentor told me to work on resting, but now I understand. I’ve come to realize that my yoga mentor wasn’t just teaching me about yoga. They were teaching me about life.

The hardest practice isn’t always pushing ourselves further. It isn’t always squeezing one more task into the day or one more page into the draft.

The hardest practice is trusting that stillness is valuable.

Maybe that’s why savasana comes at the end of every practice—not because it’s the easiest pose, but because it’s the one that reminds us how to start again.

Something to try this week

This week, I’m inviting you to try the practice I spent years avoiding: intentional rest. (One rule, though. Leave your phone in a different room.)

Schedule one hour that has no purpose. Don’t listen to a podcast. Don’t convince yourself that folding laundry counts because it’s “mindless.”

Instead, go outside and wander without knowing where you’re going. Sit down and stare out a window. Let yourself be bored.

Like savasana, it may feel surprisingly difficult. Probably a little annoying. But stay a while and see what happens.

You might discover that rest isn’t time away from your life, but an important part of it.