The theme for my classes this week is "open heart, open mind." This might be getting a little heady, a little out there, for some of you. But if you get beyond the "oh, goodness, what is this hippie yoga chick blathering on about" you might see some something.
The mind-body connection isn't a secret within the yoga world. I frequently talk about it in my classes when we're in long holds, like pigeon. If you don't believe me, start tracking the sensations you feel in intense poses like that. You'll notice some days feel really open and light and easy. Others feel like holding this posture should have been part of the Spanish Inquisition. Check in with why this might be. Did you have something stressful or emotionally difficult happen recently? That might be why you want to cry and swear. (For example, all last summer I was in physical therapy for knee and neck issues. A common technique for us was dry needling- meaning he'd take an acupuncture needle and send it directly into areas of tightness to try to break up the tension and release it. Very painful on a good day. For the week after my breakup last year, he couldn't get within 6 feet of me with a needle because I was so emotional and stressed.) In a hips and twists clinic with Les Leventhal years ago, he phrased why this is very eloquently, "We hold the scar tissue of our emotional baggage in our hips." That can be why they're so tight, because it's a defense mechanism from dealing with whatever you experienced.
Similarly, we inherently protect our hearts. It gets so tight in that area, literally and figuratively. In the last year, I've really been working on that part of my physical practice. I could say it's been about one pose I've been working with, but the reality is is that I realized how many poses relate to opening the heart that I wanted to work on. It started with flipping out of handstand into wheel. Then I started playing with hallowback handstand and forearmstand. Then I really wanted to start working the full bind in king puff pigeon (catching my foot overhead). Then it was forearm wheel. Then it was straight legged wheel, which really focuses on pressing the heart through the shoulders. Do y'all see where I'm going here? By wanting to work on heart opening and back bending for one posture, I discovered I'm really working on it for a lot of postures.
So yesterday was Transformation Tuesday. Being a yoga photo junkie, I have a lot of throwback pictures to chose from. I love being able to see the progression of my physical practice, and seeing where I still want to go. For me, a lot of the most drastic changes are these backbending and heart-opening poses. Again, by focusing on deepening one posture, I immediately saw the correlation between many others.
Opening your heart is scary. Whether it's starting a relationship, diving into a new job, moving, or even just going to a new yoga class. Any time you're trying something new, you're opening your heart to that experience. But here's the catch. You have to go all in. If you hold something back, it's not going to work. If you sequester part of your heart, even if it's for your emotional protection, you won't get all that you could out of the experience. If you don't give 100%, you won't get 100%. Yes, it's f***ing scary. Yes, you could fail or get hurt. But isn't it worth the risk to get the chance to love, to excel, to totally rock it out?! Hell yeah!
So by working on opening our hearts on the mat, we're physically trying to break up all that tightness we build up to protect us. We're actively making ourselves more vulnerable. Another way to look at that, a more positive way to look at it, is that we're working to open ourselves more and more to love, opportunity, and experience. To accept and revel in everything that comes our way!
PS, I wanted to share that I wrote this post in a coffee shop in Portland called "heart." No, I didn't plan it that way. :)
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