Next week is Christmas, and as Michelle reflects on the season—what it holds, what it doesn’t, and the quieter spaces many of us feel at this time of year—an insight from a yin yoga class offers an unexpected theme: boredom. In yin yoga, long-held poses can bring up discomfort, restlessness, and resistance…but what caught Michelle’s attention was her teacher’s invitation to notice boredom specifically. That word landed immediately, because boredom wasn’t just present in the pose—it was familiar in life.
From there, Michelle explores boredom as one of the “quieter” emotions we’re rarely taught to recognize, name, or stay present with. She shares a powerful childhood message about packing emotions into a shoebox and putting them away, and explains how many adults grow up fluent in managing the “big” emotions—like anger, grief, or anxiety—while remaining unsure what to do with subtler ones like boredom. But emotions aren’t problems to fix. They’re signals—like dashboard lights—offering information from your nervous system about what’s happening inside and around you.
Boredom, Michelle suggests, is often uncomfortable not because it’s painful, but because it’s empty. It creates space, and for many of us, space doesn’t feel safe. That’s why boredom becomes prime buffering territory: snacking when we’re not hungry, scrolling without thinking, turning on noise, opening tabs, staying busy—anything to outrun the sensation of “nothing happening.” The goal isn’t to judge these patterns. It’s to recognize them. Because bored eating often looks and feels different than hunger-based eating, and without emotional awareness, we end up eating at boredom rather than listening to what it’s asking for.
Michelle invites you to consider what boredom might be teaching: a need for rest, novelty, connection, creativity—or a deeper discomfort with being alone with yourself. She shares how boredom has shown up in her own seasons of hustle and burnout, and how her resistance to stillness once made meditation feel nearly impossible. And she offers a simple, powerful practice: notice boredom in micro-moments (red lights, waiting rooms, the kettle boiling), name it, feel it in your body, notice the urge to escape, and stay with it for just ten more seconds.
The episode closes with a layered personal insight: the contrast between poses like pigeon—where discomfort makes the emotional message loud—and more comfortable poses where boredom emerges and the lesson is quieter. In that quiet, Michelle recognizes a theme that’s been following her: patience. Not forcing action because of anxiety, but slowing down long enough to let the message come through. And she invites you to reflect on your own relationship with boredom—and to reach out and share what you discover.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why boredom is a “quiet” emotion that often gets overlooked
- How boredom creates space—and why space can feel unsafe
- What buffering is, and why boredom is prime buffering territory (food, scrolling, busyness, noise)
- How bored eating differs from hunger-based eating
- How emotions function as nervous system “dashboard lights,” not problems to fix
- What boredom may be trying to communicate (rest, connection, novelty, creativity, burnout, fear of stillness)
- A simple micro-practice to build tolerance for boredom: name it, feel it, notice the urge, pause for 10 seconds
- Why learning to sit with boredom supports emotional resilience and body trust
- How yin yoga revealed a deeper theme: patience, and letting decisions come from clarity rather than urgency
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