Febuary, 2019

11618 South State Street Suite 1603 ~ Draper, Utah

Heart Opening Yoga

It's February, the month where there is so much focus on love and relationships. I feel we are learning to include ourselves in that love, #selflove and #selfcare are everywhere! How can we use yoga to show ourselves love and be open to receiving love from others? How can yoga improve our overall heart health?

A little over a year ago I was visiting one of my favorite yoga teachers in San Jose, California. We were ending a yoga session when she instructed me to lay my back on a bolster so that my head and shoulders could hang off the bolster and rest on the floor. My heart was wide open in this upper back end. It was very uncomfortable, not physically, but emotionally. I felt the need to cry and scream, as well as a strong urge to get up and leave. I had just been through a painful divorce, and moved my little family for the third time in a little over a year. I had a few emotions swishing around in my body. When after what felt like forever, she told me I could slowly come up out of the pose. We exchanged looks. Mine not so kind. Hers loving and patient. She smiled and said, "I don't want your heart to close off to love." Practicing yoga poses to open my heart, and doing meditations that focused on cultivating love for myself and for others, has been a way for me to gently feel safe in my relationships. Most days my yoga mat would be and occasionally still is a place I can safely feel love.
         
Practicing mindful breathing calms our nervous system and lowers our heart and respiratory rate. Anytime we bring our attention to our breath we are bringing stress-relief to our body. Give it a try, breath in for a count of two through your nose, then exhale slowly for four counts through your nose. Then repeat for 2-5 minutes...feeling more chill? Inversions or yoga poses where our heart is higher from the ground than our head go against gravity to help venous return, (the de-oxygenated blood that flows though our veins back to our heart) improving circulation in our body. No need to jump into a headstand, doing poses such as setu bandha sarvangasana (bridge pose) or Viparita Karani (legs up the wall pose) work just as well! Meditation is a wonderful way to feel compassion and love for ourselves and others, as well as calm our heart rate and nervous system to improve our overall health. 
         
An excellent book by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. "The Body Keeps Score" explains how practicing mindfulness in yoga helps you notice the connection between your emotions and your body. "Simply noticing what you feel fosters emotional regulation, and it helps you to stop trying to ignore what is going on inside you...once you start approaching your body with curiosity rather than with fear, everything shifts." I enjoy teaching and sharing all of these practices in the yoga class I teach at Best Practice Counseling, and you are always welcome to come and experience.

Namaste,
Stephanie, yoga teacher at BPC

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