“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
― Rumi
When I first started practicing yoga, I often would cry a lot (sob) during my practice. I didn’t really understand why this was happening and a part of me did not care because it felt so good. It was a release and an opening. However, I began to associate my yoga classes with crying, and I stopped going for a while. I wondered what was wrong with me?! Luckily, I found a wonderful teacher named Max Strom who understood that this was my heart opening and that I was releasing past hurts and heartbreaks. He would patiently allow me time and space during class to safely experience what I could not have processed any other way. It is why I love yoga. And yet it is something I often take for granted in my practice.
So, today I explore how yoga can help create an open heart, one with healthy boundaries. Hatha yoga is a wonderful way to get the blood flowing and pumping. But it is also a great way to open your spiritual heart.
What is the spiritual heart?
The spiritual heart refers to the energetic, emotional state you are in. When a yoga teacher refers to “heart openers”, they generally are referring to how emotionally “open” you are.
We are often most aware of our heart when it is hurting. It is that pain in the chest you feel when you have been hurt by a close friend or lover. But it is also the pain you feel when empathizing with others who may be suffering.
When we hurt like this, it wounds us so deeply that as a protective measure we close our hearts, sometimes permanently. Of course this makes sense and it helps us survive seemingly unbearable challenges. However, at a certain point, continuing to keep your heart protected and closed can begin to work against you. Yoga begins the work of opening the heart. When your heart is open, you can connect with others again and begin to heal.
Symptoms of a closed or broken spiritual heart
How do you know if a closed heart has begun to work against you? You may notice the following experiences:
- Loneliness
- Depression
- Isolation
- Numbing self (with food, alcohol, shopping, or other behavior)
- Anxiety/panic (when not in a threatening situation)
“Yoga practice can make us more and more sensitive to subtler and subtler sensations in the body. Paying attention to and staying with finer and finer sensations within the body is one of the surest ways to steady the wandering mind.”
― Ravi Ravindra, The Wisdom of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras: A New Translation and Guide by Ravi Ravindra
Yoga Poses for opening your heart
Generally speaking, backbends work well as heart openers. But you needn’t go into an advanced wheel pose to open your heart.
- (Pictured) Roll up your yoga mat or a blanket. Lay on your back with the rolled up mat or blanket across the back of your body below the heart area. With your feet on the ground or legs extended, if it feels okay. Then, arms open and out onto the gorund, palms up. You can also put a blanket below each of your knees and open them up, if that feels good.
- Cobra or sphinx pose. Lie on your belly, legs extended. Arms (or elbows for sphinx) on the floor under your shoulders. Push up slowly and slightly. Pull your heart more forward. Imagine your heart opening as you breathe in and out.
- Shoulder stand. (aka the tear jerker) For me, shoulder stand really works at opening the heart. It is also very relaxing when done properly with a teacher present (for beginners). So the combination of opening and relaxation at once can be magical.
Heart opening mantra
While meditating, a nice mantra to try is:
Aham Prema (ah-hum pray-mah). Aham Prema means “I am Divine Love” in Sanskrit and is a wonderful heart opener. Aham Prema is beautifully sung by Donna De Lory. Just turning on this song can help you begin to safely open your heart. I like to turn this song on towards the end of a busy day when I feel a sense of resistance to meditation or yoga. It encourages a beautiful transition to a meditative, spiritual space.
Heart opening music
Ong Namo
by Snatam Kaur
on Grace
Aham Prema
by Donna De Lory
on Sanctuary
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“In silence one can receive more because all one’s activities become concentrated at one point. There is only one real rhythm; in silence you hear it. When you live to the rhythm of this silence, you become it, slowly; everything you do, you do to it.” ~ Mother Meera