Practicing death through savasana:

Letting go of who we’re not

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

“Savasana means corpse pose, and that’s not by accident,” the yoga instructor said. “When we do this final posture, we are practicing our deaths.”

After more than 20 years of practicing yoga, I did not expect this new piece of yogi wisdom during an aqua yoga class in a hot springs pool in southern Colorado. Isn’t dying one of the few things in life we can’t practice?

She continued, “It’s an opportunity to practice feeling the total surrender that comes with death. It’s also an opportunity to ask yourself how you would feel if you died today. What do you feel content about? And what don’t you?”

As I sat submerged with my arms floating in front of me like some sort of zen zombie, I surprised myself at how content I felt in that moment. Different parts of life floated across my thoughts. Family? Content. Life in Colorado? Content. Writing and work? I want to do so much still, and I’m more accepting these days of where I’m at.

But when I got to friendship, my zombie arms started to sink. Jamming home the point, a few days later an old hurt from a friend took me right out of the zen place I’d been carrying with me since hot springs yoga.

Then I remembered a list I’ve been making in my journal of everything I’m not, prompted by a poem that says consciously letting go of what we’re not lets us be more of who we are. At the top of my list: “I’m not quick.” At anything. How much of my life have I spent envying the quick kids in the room—the ones with fast answers and quick reflexes?

My burning feelings around friendship this week led me to add another thing the list: I’m not cool. I don’t attract people effortlessly—I put in a lot of effort. And I am the worst at not caring or not letting things get to me. I care a lot, and I hurt easily. None of this is remotely close to a rebel without a cause. Writing this is oddly liberating. Around friends, especially when hurt around friends, I can still get so worried about how liked I am that I pull out my old middle-school yardstick and start measuring. But if cool is just not who I am, then I can put the yardstick away.

Even if we can never fully practice death, we can practice acceptance. As Amy Poehler jokes with Paul Rudd in this interview, laughing with a friend at something absurd about life or ourselves is the opposite of mortality. There’s a timelessness in embracing the “what’s so-ness” enough to laugh.

Maybe laughing with friends who accept us is another kind of practice for the beyond.

Look for the next Creative Sort on Friday, July 25