C H A P T E R S E V E N T E E N

OPENING

THE HEART

�Each of us is a lake of love,

yet strangely enough we are all

thirsty.

— S W A M I K R I P A L U

As a result of the bumps, bruises, and very realtraumas of life, and through a tendency tofocus on cognitive processing, many adultssuffer a loss of emotional sensitivity. The flowof feeling through our internal network breaksdown, stifling communication between body,heart, and mind. What causes this breakdownis not known. Yoga points to energy blocks thatimpede the free flow of life force. Psychologyrefers to trauma, undigested experiences, body

armoring, and the suppression and repression offeeling. Neuroscience posits that overwhelm-

ing emotion may get stored in the body’s cellu-lar memory, causing neuropeptide receptors toshrink in size, decrease in number, and leaveus dull and desensitized.

Regardless of the mechanism, many of us have unconsciously erected barriers thatblock strong emotions like anger, sadness,grief, and loss. Sometime, or perhaps manytimes in the past, we were angry or hurtingand for whatever reason were unable to feeland express it. Years later, we still braceourselves from feeling it through chronicmuscular tension, defense mechanisms, andpatterns of behavior that dull our ability tofeel. It is impossible to block only “negative”feelings, and this strategy has a notable sideeffect. It prevents us from feeling pleasure,happiness, and joy. If we can’t hear the lownotes, we can’t hear the high notes either.

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Inhabiting a narrow band of feeling not onlylimits us individually, it restricts our ability toconnect with other people. When severe, itcan leave us isolated, lonely, and unable tocreate and sustain intimacy.

To make matters worse, there is a strongtendency for this state of affairs to spiral in thewrong direction. Suppression is like holding abeach ball under water. As the beach ball growsin size, more and more effort is required tohold things in place. Pressure builds within the psyche and we become reactive, carryingaround an emotional charge and apt to fly offthe handle by responding to situations withtoo much intensity. Bottling up emotion alsoagitates the mind, and we lose clarity. Acutelyaware of the pressure, we are often in the darkon what is causing it, or how to alleviate it. Allthis makes the prospect of opening up to feel-ing even more threatening, so we clamp downharder still. The path to opening the heartstarts with reversing this process and regainingthe ability to feel.

The past four years have been the most

challenging of my life as I have made my

way through the pain of separation, di-

vorce, deception, and betrayal. Anger,

bitterness, negativity, self-pity, unutter-

ably deep sorrow and grief, overwhelm-

ing devastation and despair are just a few

of the emotions that ran through me.

Without Kripalu Yoga, I’m sure I would

not be where I am today. Instead of

repressing my feelings, yoga gave me a

way to release those feelings safely—to

process them through my body. Time and

again, I felt emotions rising to the surface

while practicing postures. I breathe and

stay in the moment and soon the emotion

subsides. I always leave my yoga practice

uplifted and inspired to “take the high

road” in my actions. Kripalu Yoga has a

very cleansing and purifying effect, and

helped to make this very difficult time

more bearable.

�— M a r y Y o k e

What Are Feelings?

The term feelings covers a lot of real estate. Feel-ings are the colors, textures, and tones of yourresponse to the world around you. When youare in touch with your feelings, life is vivid andreal. Cut off from your feelings, life occurs asdry, hollow, humdrum, and meaningless. Youmay find it helpful to distinguish between twotypes of feelings that arise during yoga practice,sensation and emotion. Sensation is the rawphysical experience of being in a body thatpulses with life and is equipped with fivesenses. It includes the ability to sense the body’sposition in space, feel movement, and identifydifferences in warmth and cold, tension and re-laxation, heaviness and lightness. It also in-cludes the visual images, sounds, textures,tastes, and smells associated with the outsideworld. Mediated by the cerebellum and brainstem, sensations are basic messages essential forour safety and survival.

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O p e n i n g t h e H e a r t 267

What Are Emotions?

Emotions, on the other hand, are richer,meaning-laden feelings that seem to occur atthe interface of body and mind. While the bio-logical basis of emotion is not yet fully under-stood, it is clear that emotions are processedby different parts of the brain—the amygdala,hypothalamus, and limbic system—known to

play important roles in decision-making andmemory.

Emotions convey a wide range of importantmessages. The flow of emotion is not an occa-sional occurrence, as suggested by the phrasegetting emotional. The emotional system is work-ing all the time to sustain a familiar emotional

tone that governs mood, colors thought, andhelps us act appropriately. A consistently angry

�T H E M O L E C U L E S O F E M O T I O N

The pioneering work of neuroscientist Candace B. Pert, PhD, suggests thatemotions are part of a biochemical information network linking body andbrain. The body has a “chemical nervous system” that operates through the

flow of neuropeptides, information-carrying molecules produced all over the bodythat link with specific receptor sites in the brain. Pert believes that emotion is the feltsense of this exchange of information. As she describes in her book Molecules of Emo-tion:

Every second a massive information exchange is occurring in your body. Imagine each ofthese messenger systems possessing a specific tone, humming a signature tune, risingand falling, waxing and waning, binding and unbinding, and if we could hear this bodymusic with our ears, then the sum of these sounds would be the music that we call theemotions.

My research has shown me that when emotions are expressed—which is to say that thebiochemicals that are the substrate of emotion are flowing freely—all systems areunited and made whole. When emotions are repressed, denied, not allowed to be what-ever they may be, our network pathways get blocked, stopping the flow of vital feel-goodunifying chemicals that run both our biology and our behavior.

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or sad person has often grown so accustomed totheir emotional tone that they are unconsciousof how it impacts their behavior and their recep-tion by others.

Kripalu Yoga makes more room inside of

me, and I’ve discovered that there is so

much to explore. It’s not always pleasant,

but I’ve become emotionally and spiritu-

ally stronger. I used to be reserved and

guarded and let the past rule the future.

Now I can express myself more freely and

love more openly.

�— S u z a n n e S w a n g

Emotions are complex and sometimesconfusing. It is not uncommon to flip-flop between opposing emotions in response to asituation. You may be happy that you got apromotion at work, but sad that a hard-working colleague was passed over. You mayfeel genuine warmth for a loved one, yet beenraged at how they are treating you. You maybe elated to have accomplished a major goal inlife, but feel overwhelmed by yet another hur-dle looming on the horizon. To further com-plicate matters, your emotional and cognitiveresponse to a situation may conflict. Thoughtsand feelings can diverge in different direc-tions, leaving you confused and needing timeto sort things out.

Kripalu Yoga teaches you how to hear andhonor the full range of emotional messagesflowing through you. By listening closely, mostpractitioners discover that their body is far from

a mindless brute. Dancing for joy, or sobbingwith sadness, the body is highly sensitive andprofoundly wise. It is the seat of an attribute asold as the hills but only now being recognizedas important: emotional intelligence.

Kripalu Yoga so fundamentally altered the

way I see myself and the world around me

that years later I am still moved to tears

writing these words. Thanks to Kripalu

Yoga, I was able to reinhabit my body and

release a lifetime of accumulated tension

and psychic pain. As I practiced with

awareness, the adult I had become was

able to make space for the forlorn little girl

I had once been. As I experienced my own

suffering and welcomed it into the light of

consciousness, my sweet, true Self emerged

and compassion gradually awakened in

me; compassion for myself—both as a

child and as an adult—and by extension

for all others who suffer as well. In this

mysterious and graceful way, Kripalu Yoga

opened my heart, teaching me what it is to

love and be loved. For that great gift, I will

always be immensely grateful.

�— S u z a n n e S e l b y

G r e n a g e r

Regaining Sensitivity

Kripalu Yoga offers a way to safely reclaim yourability to feel. It is based on a simple but pow-erful truth: you do not need to do anything to

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