Yoga is not only a physical practice; it is a powerful means of emotional healing. When we are under stress or experience trauma, our emotions can become lodged in the body, resulting in tension, nerves that are on edge, and even physical pain.
We know now that practicing yoga can help with all sorts of healing, but what yoga actually does in this regard, and how it does it, is not well understood.
How Yoga Helps Release Emotions
The body and mind exist in a profound alliance. They share a deep and abiding connection.
This becomes clear when we consider how, in times of stress or trauma, we tend to store that tension and emotional energy right in our muscles, like the drag and drop email builder causing them to tighten (or even cramp), and in our breathing, making it shallow (or even breathless), and in our energy pathways, making that energy feel stuck and glumpy in our system.
- Physical Release: To help let go of held tensions, especially in the hips, shoulders, and chest, stretch and open the body.
- Awareness of Breath: Breath that is full and calm makes the nervous system calm. It is the first step into the emotional space. It creates the opening for you to feel your emotions fully and to move through them in a linear fashion. In other words, it creates a nice, wide, smooth path for emotions to travel on. They don’t get jammed up and stuck in there, which is one of the things that happens when you repress emotions.
- Mindfulness: The present-moment awareness that yoga fosters encourages you to observe and release emotional patterns – much like the ones we’re all vulnerable to – that can make us feel heavy and weighed down, but which we usually don’t talk about or share (because, you know, emotions).
Emotional healing happens in yoga when movement, breath, and mindfulness are combined.
Yoga Poses for Emotional Release
Here are yoga positions that are meant to help let go of emotions that have been held onto for too long:
Hip-Opening Poses (Pigeon Pose or Butterfly Pose)
Often referred to as the “junk drawer” of the body, the hips harbor emotions like fear and sadness.
Opening the hips and releasing emotional blockages are what these poses are excellent for. Pigeon Pose (Eka Pada Rajakapotasana) and Butterfly Pose (Baddha Konasana) are two fantastic choices.
These poses stretch the shoulders and the chest, which are the places grief and heartache are held. The Pose of the Camel (Ustrasana) and Pose of the Cobra (Bhujangasana) foster vulnerability and emotional shedding.
Twists (Seated Twist or Revolved Triangle Stance)
The digestive system is closely linked to emotional health. For that reason, twisting poses are worth their weight in gold for stress relief. They do three things, all of which are helpful when the body is under pressure.
Seated Twist (Ardha Matsyendrasana) and Revolved Triangle Pose (Parivrtta Trikonasana) are excellent alternatives.
Viparita Karani – also known as Legs-Up-The-Wall Pose – can be an excellent position to help relieve tension in the body. This pose is a gentle inversion (the head lower than the heart) that enables the body to let go.
Because it is an inversion, it is also good for calming the nervous system, which is helpful for anxiety and sleep issues.
This pose restores the nervous system and makes it easier to release pent-up emotions. It encourages deep relaxation, allowing the body to process what it needs to process before moving on.
Conclusion
A deep practice of yoga can be a way to heal emotions. It can create a safe and nurturing environment in which to release the stored-up stress and trauma your body has held.
To let the long-held emotions come to the surface and be released, try incorporating some of the following poses into your regular yoga routine:
- Child’s Pose. This is a way to create a safe, internal, caved space in which to let go.
- Hip openers. These poses enable you to free up stuck emotions held in your hips.
- Heart openers. These poses help to facilitate the releasing of any pain or sadness associated with past or present relationships.
The above can be considered some of the basic poses or categories of poses, which when held can help in either a profound or subtle way, release stuck emotions.