The Soft Work is the Radical Work

🪷On the Mat: What’s Your State?

One of the most powerful things yoga offers us is the practice of noticing—not just breath or body, but the internal states that shape how we move through the world.

In yogic philosophy, we talk about the gunas—three constantly shifting, ever-present qualities of nature, including ourselves:

• Tamas (inertia, heaviness, stagnation)

• Rajas (activation, intensity, restlessness)

• Sattva (clarity, balance, harmony)

The goal of yoga isn’t to eliminate any of these energies, but to bring them into balance. The same is true of our nervous systems. We won’t always feel calm—and we’re not supposed to. But we can develop the capacity to notice what state we’re in, and gently guide ourselves toward steadiness.

Tamas might manifest as exhaustion, brain fog, or collapse. Rajas can feel like anxiety, agitation, or a need to move. Sattva is dominant when we feel clear, connected, and aligned. None of these are inherently good or bad—they’re just information.*

Yoga gives us tools to respond. Movement and breath may help stir tamas. Restorative practices can soothe rajas. And when sattva arises, we learn to recognize and sustain it without clinging.

Yogic teachings remind us that it’s not about achieving a fixed state under one guna. It’s about cultivating awareness so we can respond with intention instead of reactivity and find balance.

One way we support this in our nervous system is by tending to vagal tone—our system’s ability to shift out of stress and back into regulation. Flowing movement, breathwork, and chanting can stimulate the vagus nerve and increase our capacity to return to balance.

In other words, the practice doesn’t just feel good; it’s rewiring us for steadiness.

These practices are how we build trust with our bodies and gently widen our capacity to meet what’s already present without bracing or bypassing.

*Just a reminder that the yogic concepts discussed here are simplified. Further reading: The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads, and The Yoga Sutras of Pantanjali all have discussions about the Gunas.

🔍 Macro Lens: Who Benefits When You Burn Out?

If tuning into our bodies is so natural, why is it so damn hard?

Because we’ve been taught—over and over again—not to trust ourselves.

Capitalism rewards output, not awareness.
White supremacy values control over connection.
Ableism defines worth by productivity and performance.
Cisheteronormativity punishes fluidity, softness, and anything that resists rigid binaries.
Colonialism treats the body as a machine, not a living, cyclical being.

These systems don’t just shape the world around us—they write their rules into us.
They train us to override hunger, rest, pain, emotion. To push through, to self-sacrifice, to “power through” discomfort like it's a badge of honor.

And the more we ignore our own cues, the easier we are to manage. To exploit. To silence.

That’s why this work—the soft work, the slow work, the noticing work—is actually radical.

Because every time you pause, check in, and choose to respond instead of override… you’re refusing to be controlled by someone else’s narrative.

Yoga can’t erase these systems. But it gives us a way to notice how they show up in our bodies, when we collapse into tamas, spin out in rajas, or feel guilt when we try to rest.

When we explore these states on the mat, we start to recognize what the world has trained us to ignore. We begin to reframe discomfort as information, not failure. We get curious. We pause. We ask better questions.

And slowly, we remember that our cues were never the problem.

The problem was the culture that taught us to override them.

🗓️ This Week’s Practice

🪷 Flow & Restore: A Practice for Your Nervous System
Join Here
Sunday, April 20, 9 PM Eastern

We’ll start with gentle, flowing movement to discharge excess energy and invite awareness, then transition into fully supported restorative postures to settle and soothe the nervous system.

This class is designed to help you shift states—whether you’re feeling wired, foggy, or just a little off—and find a path back to your version of balance.

Suggested props:

• 2 large pillows or 1 bolster/couch cushion

• 2 small pillows or yoga blocks

• 2 blankets or towels

• Optional: eye pillow or scarf, cozy layers, a mug of something warm

Are you practicing in a chair? Grabbing a second one to elevate your legs or support forward folds might be helpful.

Come as you are. Rest is always welcome here.

If you missed it, check out last week’s practice, 60 Minute Prop-Supported Restorative Yoga + Radical Rest Affirmations.

💬 Why I Still Mask

I still mask. Not because I'm afraid or misinformed, but because I care.

My choice to mask is grounded in science-based evidence and community care. COVID hasn’t disappeared—and neither have the immunocompromised, chronically ill, disabled, and at-risk folks in our communities. Many of us live with, love, or are people who could be seriously harmed by infection (or reinfection), and we deserve to make decisions that reflect that reality.

For me, masking isn’t about fear—it’s about values. I believe in collective care. I believe in harm reduction. I believe that staying healthy and keeping others healthy is more important than the physical or social discomfort of wearing a mask, even in increasingly hostile or isolating environments.

Disability justice teaches us that access is love. That autonomy and interdependence aren’t opposites—they’re intimately linked. And yoga, when practiced as a tool for liberation, asks us to move through the world with awareness and intention—not just for ourselves but for each other.

Just like we learn to listen to the body’s subtle cues on the mat, masking is one way we listen off the mat. It’s one way I say: your life matters. And so does mine.

♻️ Rest / Rage / Repeat

This week’s rest prompt:
Make a list of 3 cues your body gives you—before you crash. (Headaches, zoning out, irritability…?) Then pick one small way you can support yourself and move closer to center. Bonus points if it involves snacks, stillness, or saying no.

This week’s rage fuel:
The government’s latest gutting of COVID-19 protections continues to endanger high-risk folks in the name of “normalcy,” including shutting down the Office of Long COVID. Long COVID affects approximately 23 million people in the U.S., and its closure puts research, treatment, and care at further risk. Read more via Scientific American

Action item:
😷 Keep masking or consider starting again in higher-risk public spaces like grocery stores, doctors’ offices, and public transit. If our governments won't help us stay safe, we must do it for each other.
 📰 Stay informed: The People’s CDC or @peoplescdc on Instagram
 📝 Contact your legislators and tell them we want Long COVID research and support:
usa.gov/elected-officials or Find Your Rep (Canada)
📚 If you have Long COVID, you can find resources, papers, and research trials here: RECOVER

This week’s reminder:
It’s not over. You’re not overreacting. And you are not alone.

📬 You made it to the bottom!

This newsletter is a practice in staying with ourselves and each other. In noticing what’s real, what’s hard, and what helps—and in refusing to override our humanity in the name of being “fine.” Thanks for being here.

In rest and resistance,
Shannon

P.S. Did you know that an audio version of this newsletter is available on Patreon?