Yoga and emotions
The ancient yoga texts state the reason yoga helps us connect to our oneness is due to the inner contemplation of the practice — developing an inner awareness helps us develop a better outer awareness.
Theres a trend toward trauma informed yogas and a lot of discussion around using yoga to deal with psychological mental states. This is good. Yoga is about dealing with our mental state!
Many in yoga have heard this brief statement: “Yoga chitta vritta nirodaha” is the verse in the sutras that says what yoga is: translated it is the mastery of mental fluctuations. Its not about doing better sun salutes, getting the hop through or nailing a hand stand. Many yoga texts state yoga is about a calm and steady mind:
Yoga is the mastery of the fluctuations in the field of consciousness “Yogas chittavritti nirodhah” Patanjali Yoga Sutras 1.2
Yoga is said to be a remedy for calming the mind “Manah prashamana upaya yoga ityabhidhiyate” Yoga Vasishta 3.9.32
Yoga is equilibrium of mind “Samatvam yoga ucyate” Bhagavad Gita, 2.48
Fluctuations of the mind come in the form emotions. No culture is devoid of emotion.
In ancient Hindu cosmology they talk of the “gods” stirring an ocean of milk which stirs up two things; one is deadly poison and one is the nectar of immortality. Nobody can deal with the deadly poison that was stirred up so Shiva comes and holds it in his throat (why he is often depicted with a blue throat).
This poison is the “bad” emotions that can be stirred up. The stirring of the ocean of milk is metaphor for doing yoga —even if its just asanas we stir up a lot.
As we do yoga, we start to feel amazing, we stir up the good. We see our life in new ways. Then there is this challenge that happens, the deadly poison. We stir up emotions too —all of our crap comes up. We can’t do yoga to get to that beautiful state of mind without seeing all our dramas and traumas, our anger, our grudges and our wounds. Everybody has these emotions.
Practicing and dealing with your crap when it comes up is part of the practice. We acknowledge this every time we do the opening chant of ashtanga yoga; in it we sing “Samsara halahala mohasantyai” which loosely translates as our conditioned existence brings up the poison of delusions it goes on to say; may the “jungle doctor” or shaman lead us toward peace. Here is my loose translation of first paragraph:
“I ask the gurus of yoga to bring (sandarsita) sight as in insight or clear seeing, (svatma) pure being, (sukhava) happiness, (bodhe) awakened <and when we don’t feel these we take refuge with> (nihsreyase refuge jangalikayamane lit. jungle hut), shaman, or jungle physician to help us through our (samsaras) conditioned existence <that brings about> halahala poison, moha delusion and replace it with santyai peace.”
When we sing our opening chant we are asking the powers that be to bring us clear sight, pure being, happiness, and the awakened state. When the poisons come up please guide us to our shaman who can help us see through our delusions and find peace.
Yoga stirs our ocean of feelings. We usually come to yoga to clean up our life or body, feel better, fit, strong, refreshed. In that process we also want to get “good at it” and this starts to create emotions in our body for better or worse.
Western philosophies categorize emotions as untrustworthy, not rational. Eastern philosophies look at this differently. Our emotions can be used as our way in. Our way to work on our stuff. First, we have to recognize and acknowledge when we are feeling challenging emotions.
The Rig Veda talks of six poisonous emotions that can develop if we practice without awareness and intension. They are:
Desire (kama)
Anger (krodha)
Greed (Lobha)
Delusion (moha)
Pride or arrogance(mada)
Jealousy (matsarya)
This is the ego side of the asana, its part of the deadly poisons and Shiva comes to the rescue. He’s not afraid of it, he doesn’t swallow it, he doesn’t spit it out. He holds it for us, until we can take a look at our thinking mind and realize the delusions of separateness it creates.
If you follow the Yoga philosophies they give us strategies to deal with distractions so we can choose our thoughts and leave behind traces of kindness.
OM
When all else fails chant OM! OM is believed to mimic the sound of the universe. Chanting OM can move us toward the delta brain waves of restoration. Chanting induces the relaxation response. Chanting OM deactivate certain parts of the brain that regulate emotions, slowing the mind to be at peace.
These suggestions are from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali:
- Breathing practices and Breath awareness first; erratic, shallow, mouth breathing sets off our stress response. Train yourself to be a slow, deep, nasal breather all day long. This is why we do breathing practices, we are trying to train our body to breathe in the manner we are practicing.
- Pranayama breathing techniques that include breath holding raise carbon dioxide in the body which has a calming effect on our nervous system, resetting the nervous system.
- Sensation awareness — what are you bringing into your body through your senses? Scrutinize what you bring in through your senses as much as what you bring in through your mouth. See with your eyes what is pleasant, hear with your ears what is auspicious — don’t watch stressful movies, try to fill your senses with beauty.
- Inner luminosity — feel an inner luminosity or light radiating from your inner being. See it creating a aura of beautiful sunlight around you.
- Stable mind. Meditation is the tool for this, being able to pull away from bad thoughts and switch to the good thoughts at will. Practice will allow you to do this easier and easier.
- By way of the heart – meditating on the heart. A tool to take control of your thoughts is to imagine breathing through your heart center. Try it! It makes you feel lighter.
- Contemplating the stream of the mind (critical thinking). Learn to laugh at your thoughts or in some cases discover what past experiences has led you to the thoughts you are having which can empower you to strengthen your mind away from unpleasant thoughts.
- Contemplating what your mind would be like if you had no desires — contemplate that you have everything you want in life, what would it look like?
- And lastly by contemplating on anything higher minded whatsoever one likes 🙂
Yoga Sutras also gives us tools on how to behave in community and with other people. The 4 attitudes to have with people:
- Friendliness to the happy
- Compassion to the sorrowful
- Sympathetic joy towards the virtuous. Be happy for someone accomplishments as if they were your own —don’t be jealous that they are not your accomplishments.
- Equanimity towards the un-virtuous — in further words don’t let someone else’s wrong doing pull you off your center of well being.
YS 1:33
Yoga is also about how to navigate emotions.
The simple answer? Love. Realize when you feel one of the six poisons and see if you can replace it with love. It starts with awareness, awareness of the emotions in your heart and how they are rooted in what you are thinking.
And I just want to add, when you are having a hard time getting a grip on your emotions, we do have natures scents and aromatherapy. Sacred sense, like frankincense and sandalwood help to calm our minds and settle our thoughts, citruses uplift our mood, flowers give us a self-confidence and some like Jasmine are aphrodisiacs, making it easier for us to feel the love. Pines, firs, and Juniper berry all clear the air, clear our thoughts, and clear our lungs making it easier to breathe deep. And the flowers can also calm some of those emotions of anger and frustration.
Taking a walk outside can do all the above.
A Meditation to relax your brain and feel the love:
- Sit tall, shoulders relaxed.
- Relax your tongue on the roof of your mouth. This releases the hypoglassal nerve (12th cranial nerve, controls movement of tongue) that runs from your tongue into the vagus nerve. This signals your body that you are in a safe space, and you can relax
- Slow your breath rate down, with slightly longer exhales. Any comfortable slower pace with extended exhales is good.
- Picture a large empty space behind your eyes.
Feel how this allows your brain, your eyes, your cheeks to all relax. - Visualize your physical heart, heart space or heart chakra. Imagine you are breathing right through your heart space. As you inhale, inhale see yourself inhaling love—inhale it right into your heart. Let it increase the love in your heart.
- Take your attention to your out breath; with each out breath imagine a beam of love flowing out from your heart. Sending love outward. “Love isn’t love until you give it away”.
- Now inhale and bring the beam of love back into your heart and visualize it flowing to any part of your body that needs healing, or that feels tight or restrictive.
- Now relax your mind, and return to slow comfortable breathing for as long as you like.
This simple meditation can slip you away from the six poisons and into the luminosity of your heart.
With some time in this meditation you can spend more moments of your days in this state of the integrative brainwaves. In this state you feel wonderful and it makes it easier to notice the awe in our world.