Experiences on the yoga mat — Now, take a deep breath and burst into tears
I had intended to start a new blog series yesterday, but one of my other resolutions seemed to get in the way: my yoga practice.
Since going to classes can be expensive, and I am yet to find a studio to really dedicate myself to, I use the Yoga HD app on my iPad for my practice at home. One of my goals for the New Year — really, just for my life since I started in the last few days of 2011 — is to do some yoga every day. Even if it is just 22 minutes of Sun Salutations.
Yesterday, I dove into a Deep Cleanse routine, setting the intention that I can do anything I set my mind to. In a way, I think we all have moments, days, or spans of time where we feel inadequate or like what we want to achieve in life is too difficult or beyond our abilities. For me, I thought this made the most sense.
I made it through my practice and felt great. As the day wore on, however, I started feeling deeply sad. For no reason. At the grocery store, I felt like I was going to burst into tears because I couldn’t find the frozen peppers. Then, on my way home from a grocery store I’d never shopped at, in a town I had never been to, to a home that isn’t mine, I started to cry.
What. Is. Going. On. Here?
I tried to talk it out with Jay before we made dinner with Rob and his friend, about how it must be all the changes and stresses we had gone through over the last few days. I chalked it up to that, took a few breaths, and went downstairs.
This morning I read an article on Yoga Journal about this very phenomenon. The piece was written by Donna Raskin, and it detailed the story of a woman who was on her way home from practice when she suddenly began to cry.
“The holistic system of yoga was designed so that these emotional breakthroughs can occur safely,” says Joan Shivarpita Harrigan, Ph.D., a psychologist and the director of Patanjali Kundalini Yoga Care in Knoxville, Tennessee, which provides guidance to spiritual seekers. “Yoga is not merely an athletic system; it is a spiritual system. The asanas are designed to affect the subtle body for the purpose of spiritual transformation. People enter into the practice of yoga asana for physical fitness or physical health, or even because they’ve heard it’s good for relaxation, but ultimately the purpose of yoga practice is spiritual development.”
I have always known that yoga, and many other exercises, can cause this kind of release. I had never experienced it until yesterday. During my search on the web, Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy kept coming up. It’s based in West Sturbridge, MA. It’s assisted yoga in which the instructor holds you in positions and, essentially, asks you what’s happening so you can let it out. I think I’ll have to plan a trip out there.
(Side bar: It was pretty warm this morning, but now it is snowing outside of my window. And it is sunny. Sigh.)
I wanted to write about this before I dive into my yoga practice for today. If you practice yoga, is this something you have experience?
