Yoga & Your Emotional Garbage

When people tell their friends to try yoga, they always say, “You’ll feel so good! I’m always so relaxed after yoga.” But here’s what nobody tells you about practicing yoga.

Yoga can make you feel like an emotional train wreck. It’s true. I will openly admit it.

 We store emotions in the body, and memories linger on within cells stashed deep inside our muscles. Suddenly we are in a pose and open a part of the body that has been left alone until then, we stretch and release muscles that have gone unnoticed for years. We release tension, and in the process release memories and emotions that were stored deep down long ago, and have been sleeping deep in our bones ever since.

So one minute you may be lying on your back, enjoying happy baby, and the next minute you are flooded with rage and want to punch a baby in the face. You have no idea what triggered it, there is no reason to be feeling this emotion now, but it’s here and it’s real and it has to be worked through. During yoga class, we learn to control our breath, to calm our minds, to help our bodies unwind. At first, this is great—we sleep better at night, we’re less stressed, and we feel great having released the tension from our shoulders. We learn to cope with our day-to-day stress, to release the muscles we have tensed up with our daily activities. On the surface, everything is going great. But we are multidimensional beings, with long complicated emotional backgrounds. We have all been sad, scared, angry, and lonely in the past, and we have suppressed old scars, heartache, and humiliations, just to be able to function in our everyday lives.

As we learn to connect to our breath, yoga starts working more effectively.

Stress, anxiety, tension—completely gone! So it starts working on the backlog, trying to sort through some of the old emotional messes, so you can finally unclutter your innermost being. Things you haven’t thought about in years suddenly rise up in Triangle, and you can’t stop crying in Savasana because you’re a hot mess and have no idea why.

It’s easy to feel like a lunatic when one of these emotional tidal waves strikes in the middle of yoga class. Nobody warned me about this phenomenon, and the first time I experienced it (thanks a lot Camel Pose)  I was worrying about what other people thought of the tears running down my face instead of being present and feeling. As the instructor walked behind me, she placed a hand on my shoulder, smiled and whispered, “Just let it out.” Once she had given me permission to give in to the experience, my muscles immediately relaxed. I closed my eyes and felt the tears running down my face, and I felt all the sadness emptying out of my body. I felt so deeply relieved and peaceful.

I will always be grateful to that yoga instructor. She gave me a place where it was safe to feel all of the stress that had been accumulating in my life, to surrender, and to let it go. In the moment, it sucks. It sucks to feel sad, to feel angry, to feel pain. But at the same time, it feels really good to finally, fully feel.

So no, Yoga class is not always sunshine, rainbows and unicorns. Sometimes yoga beats you up to allow the emotional release we so desperately need. The more we release our pasts, the more we are able to be present and enjoy everything that this moment has to offer.

If you can create a safe space for yourself, in your body—to experience these emotions without judging, just accepting whatever comes up, and riding the wave—you, my friend, are really doing yoga. Your practice is far more advanced than the man who can put his feet behind his head.

Remember, if yoga makes you feel like emotional garbage, that just means it’s working!

-Namaste

Jessica