With breathing and stretching, any yoga practice can stir up strong emotions. Understanding that this is a common phenomenon helps us make use of this powerful tool.
Yesterday, I felt glum. I had called off work with a migraine, and after I woke up with the headache subsiding in the early afternoon, I proceeded to sit in the dark and berate myself for all of the things I wasn't accomplishing.
As the afternoon grayed into twilight I realized I was getting nowhere with these blue thoughts, so I decided to run through a brief relaxing yoga routine. I hoped to do something to get me out of my head; maybe I could even relax my tense neck and shoulders.
By the time I began my first Downward-Facing Dog pose I was crying. Bending my knees and sinking back into Child’s Pose, I curled in on myself in the fetal position and let the tears flow. Consciously, the only thing I concentrated on was keeping my belly soft, and observing the emotions as they washed over me.
I have never responded so strongly to down-dog before, but I’ve known other yoga poses to affect me emotionally. Sometimes inversions, sometimes backbends are what bring subconscious feelings bubbling to the surface; at other times it’s a hip-opener that cracks the façade.
Consciously, I could only allow myself to feel sad and a little sluggish. I wasn’t able to tap into these deeper, more raw-feeling emotions until I slowed down and listened. The beauty of Mind / Body practices such as yoga is that it provides a safe, gentle place to feel whatever we need to feel, and to be whomever we are in that specific moment. It allows us to become more real.
