What is Yoga Nidra?
And Why Yoga Nidra?
Yoga Nidra, and nourishing food, were my avenues of healing post partum. Now, I feel trimester four is well and truly complete, and I am just a new mother navigating the world with a six month old baby, breastfeeding, working and navigating exercise for me, tummy time for her, introducing solids, making sure I still eat well….the list goes on.
I forgot about the magic of Yoga Nidra when the pace of life shifted with the growth of my daughter.
Rarely I am in my solitude, often, I am contemplating it.
And now, here I am, with 90 minutes free just for me, by accident. I lined everything up this morning to look after a client at 10 am, and when the clock hit nine minutes past 10, I sent them a text checking that they were on their way. They responded with “Shann, we cancelled today’s session, and I came in last week!” I had forgotten, and I also failed to update my admin.
Initially, I felt a spark of joy and excitement to have some free time. I’d been wanting to complete some tasks as of late, but my hands and time had been full. However, I felt no desire to tidy, to put those dry dishes away or reply to texts. I didn’t have to update my admin anymore because I already suffered the consequence of not doing so.
Ooh! I really wanted to file my nails this morning uninterrupted. I could do that! ….. How come I didn’t care to anymore? Is it the lack of my sooking angel baby on the bed and not in my embrace that makes it less appealing? Wow. Does this mean when I want to file my nails, it’s coming from a place of avoiding connecting with her? I contemplate. It feels like a no; it feels like I want to give myself self-love, not abandon looking after her or myself. I sigh. Is this really how I will spend my FIRST SPONTANEOUS, FREETIME, NO EXPECTATION, NO SERVICE OF ANYTHING 90 MINUTES THAT HAS FOUND ME IN NEARLY SEVEN MONTHS… JUDGING MYSELF?
I exhale.
My daughter is out for a walk with her dad, and it is presumed that I am with a client, so what do i want to do? I think those chores could wait. Am I supposed to join them on a walk? Will my partner be disappointed if I don’t? Hmmmm. Does that make me co-dependent? Will he think I lied? Am I clingy? I hear my own voice in my head shout, “Wrong way Shann! Chill!” Ahhh, now I’m feeling all giddy with delight. I desire to be creative and write. BUT, what the hell am I to write about? Of course, all the inspiration comes through when I’m busy driving, showering, cooking or walking with my baby. Delight soon became stupidity. It transmorphed into guilt and frustration. This morning I rose early, breast fed my daughter, prepared her for the day, pumped breast milk and arranged the treatment room while my partner made us breakfast. My partner knows to return at 11.30 for her feed. And here I am, whiplashed by my own NOT doing, my forgetfulness, lack of focus and poor communication, feeling blocked, blinded, and ping ponging around in my mind about what to do and where to start. Yearning to be creative, but surging with emotions and brain-fogg instead.
Suddenly, I abruptly stand. I remembered that I could finally get around to the healing session for my partner’s father that we’ve been trying to make time for weeks. I should go ask him, I really should.
I don’t want to.
Does that make me selfish? Maybe I need to be selfish? Shit. I’ve looped again into judgment.
I pull a card. I read the oracle. Nothing new here. I twiddle my thumbs. I feel disappointed about how when I teach yoga, I feel so grounded and embodied. And here I am, in my own life, my real life, totally not Om…..
Far out, my mind is racing. When is the cacao I made and drank before going to drop me into my body?
Bingo. Meditate Woman. You know better. I sit. By my computer. On a stool that has wheels next to our massage table in our home studio. Eyes closed. Waiting. Lotus. Tall spine. Open Heart. One hand Gyan Mudra & the other assisting Nadi Shodhana.
I begin to return. I notice the birds outside, and I recall George, my daughter’s Papou, who I am not holding a session for, talking to me yesterday about bird lungs. He learned that birds have a highly efficient, one-way respiratory system with air sacs that store oxygen, supporting them during flight. Anyway, his point was, now, whenever he hears birdsong, he remembers to breathe. I am hearing birdsong. I breathe deeper.
It feels amazing. I’m regulating.
I travel a few more places and spaces and memories in my mind, I return to birdsong and breath and soften. I open a little more with each round of breath. My body expands into spaciousness, and I notice anxiety and residual heartbreak in my chest rippling to the surface. My mind begins to settle. The sensations start to ooze. Wow. No wonder I was spiralling, there’s important stuff here to feel into. There’s heat and mud. My breath feels like a warm goo that slowly smooths out gluggy lumps in my chest. I find peace with my pain. I feel taller. I accept my current state. I become the birds.
Suddenly, I remember recording a Yoga Nidra last week when I had some free time after I looked after that SAME CLIENT from the texts this morning. Mid meditation, I cackle at the path and synchronicities revealing themselves now that I’m grounded. Last week, I shared the Yoga Nidra recording with some of the mums from my daughter’s rhythm class to help them through sleepless nights with their babies.
I recall not feeling entirely happy with the sound quality when I first listened back, and I remember the conversation I had with my muso friend who offered to help me re-record it in his studio. It’s in the works. I’m excited. It just so happens that my first and only take of it goes for 22 minutes, 22 seconds and 22 milliseconds.
In numerology, 2 represents movement, progress, harmony, building, growth, the beginning of momentum. This energy is amplified when it is repeated. The angel number 222222 is interpreted as a sign of balance, harmony, and partnerships, encouraging you to trust your intuition, stay patient with your dreams, and believe in your ability to manifest good things. It is a sign of a path of progress becoming revealed. It can signal that you are in alignment with the energies of manifestation and are supported and protected to begin your journey.
With a smile, I recognise that this is the perfect time to put my recorded Yoga Nidra to the test and truly allow myself to receive it.
So I do.
I lie on the massage table, supine and press play.
I sank so deep at times that I was no longer in the house, let alone the room. My heart evaporated and floated, and layers of weight dissolved. Prana entered the mud. It’s interesting to listen to your own creations and be moved by them.
On a more constructive note, the sound quality is not awful. I quite liked it. We have wonderful healing instruments here that I attempted to include and they do sound too poorly for my liking. The sound is scratchy but they do not interfere with the meditation. They can just be BETTER. I’m looking forward to recreating it with my friend. I am feeling light and inspired.
I also feel reset.
Reborn as I came back to the room after the journey.
I’m sharing my first and only take of this Yoga Nidra to whoever wishes to listen to it. A crisper version is on its way. For now, it is accessible on my website. My path has revealed itself, and this meditation helped me understand it more clearly without my monkey mind getting in the way. I am walking this path again. I believe it will help others too.
If you are unfamiliar with Yoga Nidra and what it is. Read on
Sat Nam
Shann x
Yoga Nidra
The Art of Conscious Rest
In a world that celebrates doing, striving, and constantly reaching for the next moment, Yoga Nidra is the radical invitation to be.
Yoga Nidra is a guided descent into the deepest layers of your inner landscape — a place where the body softens, the mind loosens its grip, and the subconscious finally exhales.
It is the realm between wakefulness and dreaming, where your whole being remembers how to rest.
It is often referred to as yogic sleep, but it is not sleep at all.
Just 20 minutes of Yoga Nidra is equivalent to 2 hours of deep, restorative sleep. This practice deeply nourished me after giving birth as an incredible channel supporting body repair, disrupted sleep, hormonal changes, healing and all the other challenges early parenthood brings.
Yoga Nidra is the State Between Worlds
In Yoga Nidra, you are awake, yet drifting.
Still, yet travelling.
Heavy with gravity, and open as the night sky.
As the body lies completely relaxed, the brain enters the same slow, restorative waves we move through during deep sleep — while awareness remains present.
This is where healing takes root:
The nervous system shifts out of survival mode
hormones rebalance
muscles release patterns of holding
The deeper psyche reorganises and integrates
It is a doorway into the part of yourself that never feels rushed.
A Guided Journey Inward
A Yoga Nidra practice moves through gentle layers of settling the body, feeling the weight of the bones and allowing yourself to be held.
Your experience is perceived through breath, body awareness, sensing and scanning.
Awareness moves through the body, dissolving tension and unconscious gripping, latching and holding of tissues, emotions and ideas.
You aren’t just breathing; you ride your breath like ocean waves.
Softening into a slower rhythm that signals safety to every cell, unravelling with presence.
Often, you may drift away from the guidance, or to sleep, or in and out of all. It is a practice. The consistent holding from the practice keeps the body feeling safe.
Visualisation & guided imagery invoke a floating essence of the mind, opening into the spacious, symbolic language of sensation, colour and metaphor.
Put simply, you experience yourself in receptivity.
Why Yoga Nidra Is Medicine
Yoga Nidra becomes a sanctuary. It is a surrender to the body's natural capacity for healing itself through its own innate intelligence.
It is a return.
A nourishment.
It offers:
nervous system repair
deep replenishment for the adrenals
space for emotions to settle
restoration of creative energy
reclamation of energy real estate
rest that feels like being held from the inside
It is a reset that doesn’t require productivity or performance.
Yoga Nidra returns you to the body’s rhythm.
You don’t heal by pushing.
You heal by softening.
The body knows how to repair itself when given stillness.
Yoga Nidra is that stillness.
A portal. An avenue. A process.
A gentle falling back into the self you left behind when life became loud.
When You Lie Down, You Rise Differently
Emerging from Yoga Nidra feels like returning from a place beyond thought — clearer, softer, more present in your skin.
You may feel more responsive, present, embodied and gently interactive with your relationship to yourself and the world around you.
It is not escape.
It is reclamation.
A way home to your inner, Sanative Sanctuary.
