Emotion
Emotions are deeply embedded in the tissues of our bodies. When we are happy we are energized. When we are sad, we feel fatigued. Yoga can be used to balance the emotions.
Sometimes when we are feeling happy, we get to the point of feeling giddy. Feeling giddy can be fun for a short time, but can become tiring or we feel ungrounded or jittery. By doing standing asanas we can develop a sense of being grounded. Following the standing poses with some cooling forward bends can help to rebalance the out-or-control feeling.
For sadness, we can do some standing poses to regain some sense of being empowered. Certain kinds of sadness like grief may be better treated with inversions and supported forward bends as the tiredness felt from grief can be down into the core of the body and the bones feel tired. Pushing during times of grief can only cause more tiredness.
Inversions are important for most emotional problems. Head stand and shoulder stand are the great balancers. In fact they require adeptness at physical balance in many ways. Many of the acupuncture meridians that calm the spirit are activated in these two asanas. They should only be practiced under the supervision of an experienced teacher until a good level of competence is achieved.
Namascar,
Claudia
Claudia Kuhns is the founder of Yoga for Health in Denver. She is a certified Iyengar teacher and has been teaching and practicing yoga for over 20 years. Claudia is an approved contractor with the State of Colorado Vocational Rehabilitation Services . Claudia teaches beginning and intermediate students and works with specific adaptive applications of yoga. In addition to teaching, Claudia is the director of Yoga for Health .