In everyone’s body passions and strong emotions arise. Passions are expressions of intensely flowing life energy. Yogis know how to derive benefit from passions through the techniques of yoga.
—Swami Kripalu
Riding the Wave is a practice for staying with a strong sensation or emotion instead of running from it. When a strong sensation arises in the body, the natural human tendency is to get rid of it: distract, tighten, explain it, push it down, etc. Riding the Wave invites you to do the opposite: stay with the sensation, breathe, let the sensation build, crest, and pass on its own.
The practice aligns closely with what Buddhists might call a “skillful response.” You feel what’s here without adding an additional layer of resistance on top. What arises still arises, and what passes still passes. You resist the urge to fight.
This graphic represents one full wave.
Experience occurs
Something comes into your experience, such as a difficult conversation, a memory, or a wave of grief. The wave starts.
Sensations build
This is the fork in the road, with two paths. One is the skillful response: staying centered, breathing, and letting the sensation be. The other is losing center: reacting, numbing, story-making, or doing whatever we usually do to get out of feeling. Both are natural human responses. The practice is to notice which path we’re taking, and to gradually choose the first one more often.
Sensations crest
If you stay with it, the wave eventually reaches a peak. One emotion or sensation cannot increase forever. This is the part people often don’t get to, because they’ve already jumped off. But if you do reach the crest, something shifts. The intensity has a top, and once you touch the top, the wave starts coming down on its own.
Integration
On the way down, the mind catches up. If you’re lucky, insights might arrive. Something that was stuck might move, and you might experience one of those “aha moments.” It’s not a manufactured response, just what surfaces when you’ve stayed present through the peak.
Experience ends
When the wave finishes, you return to your baseline, and it might be a little different from where you started. Over time, your beliefs may change. Not because you argued yourself into a new view, but because you had an experience your old view couldn’t quite explain.
Significance for Practice
Long-held postures, in the controlled environment of a yoga class, offer a great opportunity to explore different responses. When the shape becomes uncomfortable, the mind starts looking for an exit, often long before the body needs to stop. The question becomes whether to breathe and stay or come out. Neither answer is right all the time. But the practice of staying, when staying is safe, is where both the inner and outer work of yoga happens.
Over time we learn to take what we learned on the mat out into the world when we get bad news or feel physical pain. A wave is a wave, and what changes is whether or not we’re willing to ride it.