"An instructor once told me that when there's resistence in your body, it's only because of the resistence in your mind. It's about getting inside the pose. Being the breath"
About this Quote
The body mirrors the mind. When a hip refuses to open or shoulders grip like armor, it’s often the echo of inner clenching, fear, judgment, or the need to control. Resistance in the body is the story the mind is telling in muscle and fascia. Rather than battling the sensation, the invitation is to inhabit it: to “get inside the pose” instead of pushing against it from the outside.
Getting inside means intimacy with the moment. It’s letting perception move from a commanding head to a listening body. You feel the texture of the stretch, the tremble, the heat. You recognize the protective reflex and meet it with curiosity, not force. Sometimes the tightness is guarding an old injury or an old belief. Bulldozing only teaches the body to hold tighter. Soft attention teaches it to trust.
“Being the breath” is the method and the metaphor. Breath regulates the nervous system; it widens the window in which sensation can be safely felt. When awareness rests in the inhale and exhales longer on the way out, the body receives a signal of safety. In that softened space, tissue yields and thought loosens. Breath becomes a place to live rather than a tool to use, an identity more than an action. You aren’t breathing to get somewhere; you are breath, already there.
On the mat, this looks like unclenching the jaw, allowing micro-movements, naming a sensation without attaching a drama to it. Off the mat, it’s how we meet challenging conversations, deadlines, or uncertainty. We notice the reflex to harden, then choose presence over performance. Alignment replaces ambition; listening replaces conquest.
Freedom arrives not from forcing a deeper shape but from dissolving the inner argument. When the mind stops resisting what is, the body often follows with quiet relief. To be the breath is to return to simple being, where tension unlatches and the pose, whatever it is, opens from the inside.
Getting inside means intimacy with the moment. It’s letting perception move from a commanding head to a listening body. You feel the texture of the stretch, the tremble, the heat. You recognize the protective reflex and meet it with curiosity, not force. Sometimes the tightness is guarding an old injury or an old belief. Bulldozing only teaches the body to hold tighter. Soft attention teaches it to trust.
“Being the breath” is the method and the metaphor. Breath regulates the nervous system; it widens the window in which sensation can be safely felt. When awareness rests in the inhale and exhales longer on the way out, the body receives a signal of safety. In that softened space, tissue yields and thought loosens. Breath becomes a place to live rather than a tool to use, an identity more than an action. You aren’t breathing to get somewhere; you are breath, already there.
On the mat, this looks like unclenching the jaw, allowing micro-movements, naming a sensation without attaching a drama to it. Off the mat, it’s how we meet challenging conversations, deadlines, or uncertainty. We notice the reflex to harden, then choose presence over performance. Alignment replaces ambition; listening replaces conquest.
Freedom arrives not from forcing a deeper shape but from dissolving the inner argument. When the mind stops resisting what is, the body often follows with quiet relief. To be the breath is to return to simple being, where tension unlatches and the pose, whatever it is, opens from the inside.
Quote Details
| Topic | Meditation |
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