Do you sometimes find yourself in a yoga pose feeling emotional? You could be in childs pose and feel relief or sadness or anxiety or svasana holding back tears. Why does this happen? What to do?

The body actually holds onto suppressed thoughts and emotions. From an experience when you were laughing out loud at age 5 and told to “Be quiet!” or repeated experiences of choking back tears for fear of being ‘weak’, to learning from an early age that its not ok to express anger, all of these experiences resulted in the holding of breath, and thus the retention of the emotion. It could also be that just yesterday you had an argument with your partner and today the repressed thought or feeling is showing itself in your practice.

One of yoga’s gifts and purpose, is this illumination and discovery of your emotional self. It then becomes your job to notice, to simply pay attention. With continued practice, not only are there improvements physically from your yoga, but emotional and mental patterns that are in the way of being centered and calm are brought up and burned away. Your body and spirit become pure and can gradually receive a higher and higher vibration. Accepting the movement and flow of your emotions translates into a deeper sense of acceptance for oneself.

When emotions arise, the key is to watch them as they come up, take a breath and welcome the experience. Whether you’re in a line-up at the bank, in downward dog, or driving to work, take a breath and welcome the experience. From this place of observing your emotions, you can then move deeper into seeking understanding, and eventually to release, (if it’s a pattern you don’t want to continue).

Once you observe that the emotion is there, begin to inquire inside from a place of curiosity, as to where it is coming from and why. Welcoming these emotions, practicing compassion and self acceptance will not only allow you to gain a new understanding of yourself but allow you to be more fully present for others.

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