Feelings
I'm feeling raw today. Emotionally raw. I've had an intense week.
As I was driving up to Columbia this morning to teach my Saturday morning yoga class, all I could think of was feel. That's it. Feel.
Way back when I was in high school I read that when you guard yourself against what ever you are feeling, especially pain, you store those avoided feelings in your body. Specifically, you store your avoided sensations in your fascia, a connective tissue that runs throughout your body.
This idea floored me. Fascia, the writer said, is a recording medium. It records the events of your life that you are unable to feel fully at the time they occur.
What floored me even more was that later on in life, usually when moving around or doing something out of the ordinary with your body, you start to tug on your fascia. When you move it around and soften it up, you "replay" the original event, just like you would replay a song recorded on a CD or a video recorded on VHS tape.
That's right. It is not unusual to relive the pain, emotions and details of the original experience. Often it's an experience that you've completely blocked off from your memory.
Physical therapists, bodyworkers, massage therapists and others have told me they see this all the time. I never saw it...until I started practicing and teaching yoga.
The first time I saw it was also the first time I experienced it. I was in a yoga class lying over a rolled up blanket. I was positioned so that my chest was expanded and opened.
I was lying there still. Eyes closed. Relaxing. Suddenly, I felt overwhelmed and began to cry. When class was over, I noticed that the person next to me had been crying too.
Now I've come to expect it. Sometimes it's backbends. But often it's the quiet relaxation pose savasana that gives people the space and safety they need to relive their incompleted experience.
Frankly, while I was teaching today, I felt terrible. I felt stiff and wooden, like my body was not my own. But as I kept moving and kept paying attention, I began to feel more at ease and more at home in my own skin.
Here's a coincidence: after class today, one of my students told me she was so angry with me she wanted to cry.
No coincidence at all.
We buried my Mom yesterday. I'm grateful for my yoga practice today. By moving around and paying attention, I can soften myself up and safely feel the full impact of the current events of my life. I don't have to wait.
Don't just read about it. Get up. Experience it. Experience yoga!
Kevin Perry
www.ExperienceYoga.org
Copyright 2005. All rights reserved, Mo Yoga LLC.
As I was driving up to Columbia this morning to teach my Saturday morning yoga class, all I could think of was feel. That's it. Feel.
Way back when I was in high school I read that when you guard yourself against what ever you are feeling, especially pain, you store those avoided feelings in your body. Specifically, you store your avoided sensations in your fascia, a connective tissue that runs throughout your body.
This idea floored me. Fascia, the writer said, is a recording medium. It records the events of your life that you are unable to feel fully at the time they occur.
What floored me even more was that later on in life, usually when moving around or doing something out of the ordinary with your body, you start to tug on your fascia. When you move it around and soften it up, you "replay" the original event, just like you would replay a song recorded on a CD or a video recorded on VHS tape.
That's right. It is not unusual to relive the pain, emotions and details of the original experience. Often it's an experience that you've completely blocked off from your memory.
Physical therapists, bodyworkers, massage therapists and others have told me they see this all the time. I never saw it...until I started practicing and teaching yoga.
The first time I saw it was also the first time I experienced it. I was in a yoga class lying over a rolled up blanket. I was positioned so that my chest was expanded and opened.
I was lying there still. Eyes closed. Relaxing. Suddenly, I felt overwhelmed and began to cry. When class was over, I noticed that the person next to me had been crying too.
Now I've come to expect it. Sometimes it's backbends. But often it's the quiet relaxation pose savasana that gives people the space and safety they need to relive their incompleted experience.
Frankly, while I was teaching today, I felt terrible. I felt stiff and wooden, like my body was not my own. But as I kept moving and kept paying attention, I began to feel more at ease and more at home in my own skin.
Here's a coincidence: after class today, one of my students told me she was so angry with me she wanted to cry.
No coincidence at all.
We buried my Mom yesterday. I'm grateful for my yoga practice today. By moving around and paying attention, I can soften myself up and safely feel the full impact of the current events of my life. I don't have to wait.
Don't just read about it. Get up. Experience it. Experience yoga!
Kevin Perry
www.ExperienceYoga.org
Copyright 2005. All rights reserved, Mo Yoga LLC.
posted by Kevin at 1:30 PM
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