“Yoga is the practice of getting comfortable being uncomfortable.” It’s one of my favorite quotes—even if I can’t quite trace its origin. I’ve seen it attributed to yoga teachers, Navy SEALs, and Luvvie Ajayi Jones in her TED Talk. Its popularity across such different worlds tells me one thing: learning to sit with discomfort reaches far beyond the edges of the yoga mat.
I bring it up because last week, while I was a student in a class, I overheard a student explaining – very enthusiastically – to the teacher why they absolutely could not do yin yoga. They said some variation of “It’s just too uncomfortable to sit there and hold the pose.”
First off – I get it.
Second off – that is the point.
When I stumbled into my first yin class I had no idea what was going on. I spent the hour thinking I had surely made a mistake and to double down on that thought my mind was clear that I was also 100% wasting my time. I spent more than a few of those slow steady breaths pondering the yoga etiquette of leaving practice mid-way through and a chunky chunk of time exploring my mental to-do list.
Stillness, it seemed, was the measure of whether someone was “good” at yin. To blend in, I tried the possum approach: lay on the floor and don’t move at all unless the teacher says to.
From that description you might assume I never went back. But for a few seconds at a time, the thoughts would ease off. And when we came out of shape and returned to neutral, it felt just short of magic. In contrast to the fast and sweaty yoga landscape I lived in at the time, I found space I didn’t know I could reach by just being calm and quiet for five minutes. When the practice ended, I felt curious and curiously good. I didn’t know I had lucked into a teacher that was gifted in teaching yin (more on this in a minute) but I knew I wanted more of it. Sitting in discomfort had unlocked my curiosity.
If you are unfamiliar, Yin yoga is a practice of holding shapes for several minutes each. The shapes are primarily lying down or seated and are focused on mobility, not strength or balance. Holding a shape in relative stillness creates intentional discomfort. The discomfort can be navigated with blocks and bolsters to create an appropriate level of physical sensation in the target areas. A skilled teacher with expertise in yin can make the physical practice highly accessible.
The trickier bit to navigate is the mental discomfort. Yet, sitting in this mental angst (that the student most likely was describing as the bit making yin so impossible) is where I learned to meditate.
What else is there to do? You’re still. You’re quiet (on the outside). There’s literally nothing to do but find ways to get through 3-7 minute time blocks. The quieter my body got, the faster my brain would race to take me out of the physical discomfort. I had been using power yoga to quiet my thoughts by giving my brain a lot of information to process very fast – info it had to keep up with if I was to stay upright and on pace with the other students. Yin didn’t offer that pathway of physical busyness.
In the beginning my brain pulled every trick out of its hat to get me to move. My toes needed to move. My nose itched. I absolutely had to scratch my leg or the planet would surely end. I remember I spent the entirety of one shape (5 minutes) somehow using my brain to tell my brain that my nose did not in fact itch. I had never been so wholly present to what it felt like in my body than I was when intentionally NOT moving it.
I was fortunate to have not one but three very gifted teachers as my early yin teachers. They were space holders for discomfort. Cheerleaders for the quiet spaces. They taught not just a set of shapes but how to be calm and befriend discomfort. Through the practice of yin I learned how to discern the complaining voice of discomfort from the urgent signals of pain and from the much more common twitches of boredom. My teachers offered guidance on when to stay and when to shift.
I learned how to be quiet by letting my body show my mind that it was safe to sit in discomfort, that this was not the danger my mind tried to flag it as.
I learned that I could do ANYTHING for five minutes (including quiet down my squirrel mind), and that’s a lesson that I carry well beyond the mat.
So, when I hear someone say they can’t—or won’t—do yin because it’s too uncomfortable, a part of me wants to leap into an impassioned speech about how that discomfort is the very reason they should keep at it. But mostly, I don’t. I trust folks will find their way, and that the right practice meets us when we’re ready.
The truth is that all the forms and practices of yoga can be wildly uncomfortable. Discomfort finds its way to each of us both on and off the mat. The beautiful thing? Yoga holds space for it all. May we each find our way through our practice and our lives by finding the pockets of comfort in the discomfort.
Journal Prompt: When you feel uncomfortable, what does it feel like? How do you recognize it? Answer this question for both physical discomfort and mental discomfort.
Physical Prompt: try laying still in a basic shape you find relatively comfortable in your existing yoga practice (savasana with butterfly legs, child’s pose, a wide legged legs up the wall, etc.). Hold for five minutes and watch where your mind goes.
All content I share here, elsewhere on my websites and in social media is created by me, Alison Gurevich – and not AI or other sources unless otherwise specifically attributed. This includes all photographs, writing, and ideas. All rights reserved by Alison Gurevich. “Volunteering for Discomfort” originally published to www.breathtomotion.com on June 9, 2025. When you find typos or grammar errors, celebrate humanity and enjoy a little song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3wKzyIN1yk (Human by Rag N Bone Man).