• Yin Yoga Routine...for relaxation: 1. Think nice. Amsterdam usually encourages her students to imagine that they're inhaling sunlight and directing it with their awareness toward the discomfort. "When we feel discomfort, there can be that experience of aversion," Amsterdam explains. "There's a rigidity that can come on a subtle level when we don't like what we're feeling, so by bringing a sense of benevolent energy or unconditional friendliness—which is a Buddhist term, maitri—and welcoming that discomfort helps to counteract that instinctive aversion." Don't believe her? Get into sleeping swan (aka pigeon pose) and try it. 2. Find a mantra. It can be anything simple. For example, with every inhale, think to yourself "I am relaxing." And with every exhale, think, "I am releasing." Amsterdam says that mantras steady the mind, stop obsessive negative thinking, and bring the attention to the breath.
• Hummingbirds teach us fierce independence. They teach us to fight in a way where no one gets hurt. They teach us courage. Having the courage to refrain from creating new trauma by communicating non-violently toward ourselves and others is an important part of healing. Recovering lost parts of ourselves enables us to become healthily independent.
• feelings come in waves; we experience them, we are not them. ride out the happy & the hard ones alike. understand there are lessons in both.
• Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu: May all beings everywhere be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.
• Forget about enlightenment. Sit down wherever you are and listen to the wind that is singing in your veins. Feel the love, the longing and the fear in your bones.Open your heart to who you are, right now, not who you would like to be. Not the saint you’re striving to become. But the being right here before you, inside you, around you. All of you is holy. You’re already more and less than whatever you can know. Breathe out, look in, let go. ~John Welwood
• Just For Now

Just for now, without asking how, let yourself sink into stillness. Just for now, lay down the weight you so patiently bear upon your shoulders. Feel the earth receive you, and the infinite expanse of sky grow even wider as your awareness reaches up to meet it. Just for now, allow a wave of breath to enliven your experience. Breathe out whatever blocks you from the truth. Just for now, be boundless, free, awakened energy tingling in your hands and feet. Drink in the possibility of being who and what you really are so fully alive that when you open your eyes the world looks different, newly born and vibrant, just for now.

• "Yin asks us to let our body rest and release in the posture, to gently stretch the connective tissue that forms our joints, to let the tendons and ligaments find their original range of motion that has been constricted by our benign neglect."
• The deep Butterfly Pose in Yin Yoga. This is not the same as the Yang-style Bound Angle Pose. In this pose, the legs form a diamond shape, and become totally relaxed. The upper body totally relaxes to get deeply into the hip joints, as the weight of the upper body provides the pressure for the opening. This pose should be held for 3-5 minutes. Photo taken on Pranang Beach, Railay, Thailand.