Experiencing Emotions While You Practice

Have you ever been caught off guard by wanting to burst into tears during your yoga practice? Have you ever been surprised at an upwelling of emotion as you lay in Svasana? If so, don’t be alarmed because it’s perfectly natural! Yoga is such a wonderful way to elevate your health and well being. While the most noticeable impact of regularly practicing yoga may be on your physical body, as you practice you are also having an impact on your emotional well being. It is not unusual to experience strong emotions during your practice or even soon after your finish.

When Three Isn’t A Crowd
According to yogic philosophy, the reason for this phenomena is that we are made up of three bodies and practicing yoga works each one of them. They are the gross, the subtle and the causal bodies. These three bodies are all interconnected with each other and so what happens to one body affects the others. Hence, as you practice asana and pranayama you are working out your emotions as well as your muscles.

Emotional Storage
Every emotion that we experience does not disappear into the ether as we move them. They are all experienced by the body and even stored in the body. As you continue to practice yoga your body will begin to open up. Hamstrings will lengthen, the spine may straighten, joints will loosen up and overall flexibility increases.

Opening up the body in this way is much like opening your front door and walking into your house. On one side of the door is the outside world and on the other side is the interior of your home. Your body is like that door, with an outer world and an inner chamber. Asana helps to release what gets held in that inner chamber in the body and you may experience this as a wellining up of emotion. Should this occur you might be concerned. It may be alarming to experience the need to cry as you fold forward into Utanasana or the overwhelming desire to burst into laughter in Tripod Headstand.

In Case Of Emergency
Now that you know that the need to giggle on your mat is an effect of practicing yoga, perhaps now you don't have to be concerned or overwhelmed by this effect. Allow yourself to feel your emotions as you practice. Sit with them and simply allow them to be. Notice any urge you may have to do something about them and then just let them be. Your instinct may be to try to quell and control your emotions, and yet if you allow them to be expressed you will aid in the effort of your body to let them go.

Feeling emotional on your mat is a sign that you are doing deep work and that new space is opening up inside of your three bodies. This is one of the blessings of yoga, so allow it to be and embrace the healing and renewal that is going on inside of you. May happiness and peace flow into your new spaces as you move from one asana to the next.

Om Shanti, my friends!