I used to scoff at heart metaphors. "Open your heart," I'd say. "What the **** does that mean?" Metaphors are supposed to explain something new by referring to something more familiar. So I'm supposed to know what my "heart" feels like in order to understand compassion and empathy for others? I can find my heart rate. Is that good enough?
I was pretty stuck in my mind. Still am. But I understand now what the metaphors are trying to convey, because I've felt a lot more there, literally, in the area of my heart. It's funny how certain emotions are felt as physical sensations pretty much all the way up along the central line of the body--some things we feel strongly in the gut, others in the heart area, some in the throat, others in the head. Deep emotions sometimes, but rarely, manifest in the arms and legs.
Yoga explains this by using the model of chakras. Now, I emphasize that this is a MODEL, a way of describing, not a concrete representation of reality, because I don't believe that chakras are "things" that we can find along the spine, as they are often pictured. Rather, the model of the chakras provides a useful way to talk about how certain emotional, physical, and psychological issues are so often bound up together in ourselves and in others.
And this is something I have felt in my own body, and heard from students about, too. A woman recently told me about her mother's death a decade ago. She said that whenever she wanted to hold back tears during that time, say, at work, she'd tighten her left hip flexor. That would bury the emotion so she could avoid expressing her grief at that moment.
Of course, that grief did not disappear--it became tension in the front of her hip that she then had to work out, physically and/or emotionally. She had the awareness to watch it happen and know what to do. Lots of our emotions get stored as physical tension when we bottle them up.
In my own case, I have noticed how when I am anxious or worried, my left lower back tightens. Even with little things--I can feel it tighten as I pour windshield wiper fluid into my car and get concerned about spilling it. (So I wonder how much is happening there when I'm worried about how my son's speech is developing!)
And almost all of us can feel our shoulders hunch--forward and up--when we brace ourselves for bad news, stressful events, cold wintry days, driving in poor visibility...all kinds of situations in which we try to protect ourselves from what's happening. We're closing ourselves off, defensively.
Western psychology doesn't yet have a well-developed way to deal with that interconnection of thought, emotion, and physical sensation. But yoga does. More importantly, yoga offers the practices that allow us to EXPLORE those connections on our own and notice them for ourselves.
So stop reading and do your practice. Today, focus on opening your heart area. Literally. Do this:
--Where you are right now, draw your shoulderblades toward your spine and toward your tailbone. As you do this, feel the top of your upper arm bone move securely into the shoulder socket and back towards the wall behind you.
--Notice how this makes you feel. Proud? Open to what happens next? Vulnerable? Something totally different?
--Now make sure you haven't overarched your lower back as you did this. If you feel your low back get tense or your tailbone jutting out behind you, then draw your lowest front ribs in toward your spine and lift your lowest back ribs up a little. Let your tailbone descend toward the floor as you lift your front hip points by engaging your lower abdomen. Can you maintain the open heart as you do this?
--Breathe fully into your torso. Collarbones and upper back; ribcage front, sides, and back; and navel and lower back. Notice which areas "give."
See if you can do this for the next 15 minutes where you are right now...at a desk, lying in bed, waiting in a line with your iPhone, whatever. If you lose some part of this alignment, re-establish it.
Then when you get to your mat, begin each movement with the steps outlined above. This will seat the arm bones properly in the shoulder and stretch the pectoralis muscles. It will strengthen the rhomboids, middle trapezius, latissimus, and serratus muscles. It will strengthen your transversus (deep) and rectus (superficial) abdominal muscles and teach them to engage lightly for good posture all the time. It will help maintain normal spinal curves instead of reinforcing the excessive thoracic curve ('widow's hump') that develops from hunching those shoulders forward and up....
And it may even open your heart.
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