(A personal share from Leena as she recounts her own challenges getting a good night’s rest, and excerpts from conversations with Kimmi, Yoga Nidra spaceholder, which led to developing a sleep series for Branches On-Demand)
I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with Kimberley (Kimmi) for over a year now, hosting her Yoga Nidra workshops and courses at The Branches. When she approached me with a proposal for an online series called Restoring Rhythmic Sleep, I immediately thought:
Yes! This is the carefully an lovingly designed series I wish I had had when I was struggling with my own sleep issues while adjusting to life with small kids
Any parent knows how grueling the first year(s) can be with sleep challenges. When my first baby was born in 2016, I went back to work at the studio when he was only 4 months old because I needed to negotiate and renew the studio’s lease. There were weeks when my stress was quite high, and my sleep rhythms were so disrupted by nighttime feeding that even once my son was settled back to sleep, I would lay awake with my brain racing. I wish that I had had the tools and practices of Yoga Nidra during that time of stress and sleeplessness.
Kimmi’s passion for sharing practices for sleep comes very directly from her personal experiences. Her journey with Yoga Nidra (sometimes called Yogic Sleeping) began during a period of debilitating insomnia and intense stress about a decade ago. At the time she was doing academic research and was also a yoga teacher, but she was too exhausted to maintain a yoga asana practice. She came across a Yoga Nidra workshop with a guest teacher at Queen Street Yoga (our old studio), and during the workshop she had one of the most restful experiences she’s had in years. While she recognized that Yoga Nidra wasn’t a magic bullet, she had a profound sense that the practice could help her. While on medical leave due to her severe insomnia, she dedicated herself to studying and practicing Yoga Nidra, and little by little her energy came back and her sleep rhythms stabilized. She went on to complete an advanced training in Yoga Therapy focusing on Nidra.
In a conversation recently, Kimmi and I got to talking about how insomnia doesn’t come out of nowhere. So often it’s related to profound stresses, some of which are deep and systemic. As a racialized woman, Kimmi sees Yoga Nidra as “a healing justice practice and a form of soft resistance to systems of oppression.” Alongside psychotherapy, Yoga Nidra was essential to her in working through and healing from stress injuries caused by racism and misogyny.
Kimmi often begins a Yoga Nidra with a reminder like this:
There isn’t anything you need to do to earn this rest. No certain number of items you needed to check off your to-do list. To simply be a human, a human who is tired, is more than enough. It is your fundamental human right, and a basic need, to rest.
In today’s hustle culture, this reminder is quietly revolutionary! Embedded within capitalism are so many beliefs that we are not deserving of sleep and rest. Yoga Nidra disrupts those assumptions and offers an invitation to reclaim rest as a birthright.
I truly hope you’ll check out our Branches On Demand library for Kimmi’s new series, and find some revolutionary rest for yourself. The well-rounded series includes:
- gentle movement practices for morning and evening
- a midday “Yoga Nidra Nap”
- a bedtime Nidra session to help you drift off to sleep
- a very chill practice to help you get back to sleep if you’re stuck awake in the middle of the night.
With care,
Leena
The Branches 