Josh & Terry Summers
218 episodes - English - Latest episode: 17 days ago - ★★★★★ - 126 ratingsCreative and functional approach to the spiritual path, weaving insights and practices from Yin Yoga, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and ancient wisdom traditions
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Episodes
Yin Meditation: How To Fail At Meditation (Episode 17)
September 25, 2017 09:37 - 14 minutes - 23.2 MBWhat I'm about to suggest as a way of working with sleepiness will likely cause you to question my sanity. But, for me, and many that I've spoken to and worked with, allowing sleepiness to be, i.e. letting it go on, is the most effective strategy for working with it. And, in the context of this lesson, by doing so, you might find yourself inadvertently entering deep states of stillness by specifically not fighting sleepiness. The post Yin Meditation: How To Fail At Meditation appeared first o...
Yin Meditation: Relaxing Within the Hindrances (Episode 16)
September 18, 2017 10:38 - 16 minutes - 26 MBIn contrast to more active and Yang ways of working with the hindrances, I've found it incredibly fruitful to adopt a more Yin approach. Rather than deploying any prescribed technique or strategy for dealing with them, I've found that bringing a relaxed, receptive, tolerant, and curious energy towards the hindrances is a really good first step. These qualities reframe the energy that my mind tends to have in approaching each hindrance. I'm not so much in attack mode any longer. I'm a bit soft...
Yin Meditation: Absorption Au Naturel (Episode 15)
September 11, 2017 09:00 - 12 minutes - 20.6 MBIn this Yin approach to meditation that I'm describing, when you dial back any effort to try and control your mind, you're giving your mind space to explore things that it finds naturally engaging. For example, while relaxing and being receptive to your experience in meditation, you might find that you start to think about about a dynamic at work, or an unfinished project at home, or a disagreement with someone, or a holiday you'd like to take. In allowing your mind to get absorbed into these...
Yin Meditation: Exploring Stillness (Episode 14)
August 28, 2017 09:53 - 11 minutes - 18.6 MBThe peace in the heart of these still states provides a balm to stress and anxiety. There is a profound relief and well-being that often accompanies these states. And frequently, when you experience them, there is a blooming of faith that something significant and important is developing in your meditation practice. And one of the truly wonderful aspects of a Yin approach to meditation is that internal stillness happens rather frequently on its own. The post Yin Meditation: Exploring Stillnes...
Yin Meditation: Staying Still in Meditation (Episode 13)
August 21, 2017 10:00 - 12 minutes - 20.4 MBBy committing to a fixed time, you will inevitably go through phases of calm, agitation, boredom, restlessness; periods of wondering when it will end, and possibly periods of time of not wanting it to end. And in sitting through all these experiences -- riding these internal waves -- you will start to get to know your inner world better. The post Yin Meditation: Staying Still in Meditation appeared first on Josh Summers.
Yin Meditation: The Art of Releasing Conflict in Meditation (Episode 12)
August 14, 2017 11:29 - 14 minutes - 23.6 MBWhen your mind is given permission to be receptive to the total spectrum of experience and to relax within that process -- and to not try and push unpleasant things away -- one of the things that relaxes is the resistance to conflict. I'm sure you've heard the old aphorism: "That which you resist, persists?" Well, it's true in meditation, too. If you resist conflict, it tends to just push back and kick its heels in deeper. But if you are receptive and allowing of it, the conflict tends to sh...
Yin Meditation: Playing Your Mental Edge (Episode 11)
August 09, 2017 13:40 - 11 minutes - 19.2 MBThe general "mental posture" within a Yin approach to meditation is for your mind to be receptive and open to the full range of your inner experience. But with such an open-ended approach, it's not uncommon for challenging emotions and themes to arise within your practice. I suggest handling these strong mental/emotional energies in the same manner that you might negotiate strong sensation in the body during a Yin Yoga posture. The post Yin Meditation: Playing Your Mental Edge appeared first ...
Yin Meditation: Relaxing the Mind (Episode 10)
August 07, 2017 13:29 - 11 minutes - 18.6 MBIn a Yin approach to meditation, the main emphasis is to develop a relaxed and receptive attitude towards the experiences you have while meditating - you're not trying to control or overly manage those experiences; you're developing gentleness and tolerance to yourself and the variety of experiences you have while meditating. The post Yin Meditation: Relaxing the Mind appeared first on Josh Summers.
Yin vs. Yang Meditation (Episode 9)
August 02, 2017 17:59 - 14 minutes - 22.7 MBWhen we look at different mental qualities, Yin qualities of mind tend to include traits like receptivity, allowance, yielding, tolerance, quiescence, reflection, passivity, or non-manipulation. Yang qualities of mind tend to involve traits like doing, manipulating, directing, improving, achieving, controlling, or becoming. From a Chinese perspective, both Yin and Yang qualities are essential. And the value in better understanding the relationship between Yin and Yang qualities is to promote ...
What is Meditation? (Episode 8)
July 31, 2017 12:34 - 11 minutes - 19.4 MBSimply put, meditation is mental training, and a way to know yourself better. Meditation develops certain qualities of your mind. For thousands of years, this mental training was practiced within spiritual and religious communities, often requiring a fair amount of faith, belief, and superstition on behalf of the student. But now, there is a renaissance underway, ushering in new ways of practicing and thinking about meditation. The post What is Meditation? appeared first on Josh Summers.
Yin Yoga: Bitter Practice, Sweet Result (Episode 7)
July 26, 2017 12:08 - 10 minutes - 17.5 MBI often get the sense that when students come to a Yin Yoga class they want to feel good throughout the class, start to finish, particularly when it's a class that seems on the surface to be "gentle" and "quiet" and "meditative". And yet, that is not the average newcomer's experience. At some point during the second or third pose of the sequence, newcomers often evince a grimace of distaste and concern. And this needs to be acknowledged. The post Yin Yoga: Bitter Practice, Sweet Result appear...
Yin Yoga: The Universal Donor of Yoga (Episode 6)
July 24, 2017 14:00 - 9 minutes - 16 MBAll too frequently, someone says to me: "I love how Yin Yoga makes me feel... BUT, I couldn't just do Yin Yoga." Based on their expression as they say this, I can only assume they think they've caught me in some kind of gotcha moment, where they're exposing a blind spot in my understanding of YinYoga. And much to their surprise, I respond, "Of course, you wouldn't ONLY practice Yin Yoga. I would never suggest that." The post Yin Yoga: The Universal Donor of Yoga appeared first on Josh Summers.
Yin Yoga: How to Come Out of a Pose (Episode 5)
July 19, 2017 12:45 - 10 minutes - 17.7 MBWhen it is time to come out of a Yin Posture, you may feel a pronounced disinclination to move quickly. Remember: the tissues in the area that you have targeted will be temporarily weakened as a result of the stresses placed upon them during the hold. As such, these targeted areas tend to feel delicate, fragile, vulnerable, and tender. So, because of these kinds of sensations, it's a good idea to encourage students to also come out of the pose slowly. Or, as I like to cue, "Come out gingerly....
Yin Yoga: Staying Still For Time (Episode 4)
July 17, 2017 15:30 - 10 minutes - 18.3 MBThe third principle of Yin Yoga is to stay still for relatively longer periods of time than you would in an active style of yoga practice, such as Ashtanga or Vinyasa Yoga. The question of how long you should hold the posture often surfaces. By now, you may be anticipating my answer. How long you should stay in a posture depends on a few factors: namely, the tolerance level and strength of the tissue being stressed, and the broader intention behind that stress. The post Yin Yoga: Staying Stil...
Yin Yoga: Relaxing The Muscles (Episode 3)
July 12, 2017 14:03 - 10 minutes - 18.4 MBThe second aspect of executing a Yin Yoga posture is to relax the muscles in the area that you are targeting. Confusion tends to arise when students hear this instruction to "relax the muscles." There is a tendency to take this as a global mandate that in Yin Yoga poses ALL muscles everywhere MUST relax, but this is going too far. In practice, you endeavor to relax the muscles primarily in the targeted area that you are influencing. It's this action of relaxing the muscles that shifts the emp...
Yin Yoga: Playing The Edge (Episode 2)
July 11, 2017 13:17 - 18 minutes - 28.4 MBIn Yin Yoga, and increasingly in other styles too, there is an emphasis placed on understanding how your body is uniquely influenced by the pose and then from that, making wiser choices about how to align yourself within the pose. How you feel and adapt to what you're feeling are important elements of Playing Your Edge in Yin Yoga poses. The post Yin Yoga: Playing The Edge appeared first on Josh Summers.
What Is Yin Yoga? (Episode 1)
July 10, 2017 13:45 - 12 minutes - 20 MBYin Yoga is an approach to yoga that is meant to be a complementary style of practice to more active styles of postural yoga. The intentions of Yin Yoga are to stimulate, strengthen, and revive tissues of the body that are not emphasized to the same degree as in active styles of yoga, hence its complementary nature. The post What Is Yin Yoga? appeared first on Josh Summers.
Everyday Sublime: The Podcast (Episode 0)
June 26, 2017 19:13 - 10 minutes - 17.7 MBThis podcast is intended to be a reflection on and for practice. For many years, I've signed off my monthly newsletter with the phrase, "From my practice to yours." What this attempts to convey is that first and foremost, I'm a practitioner - a Yin yogi, an acupuncturist, a meditator. As a practitioner, I'm committed to a process of learning, refining, unlearning, integrating, and developing. I hope that these reflections on my practice help you with yours. The post Everyday Sublime, The Podc...