Are some yoga postures more difficult than they should be?

Is your body telling you to let go?

Release Your Emotions with Yoga

Have you ever been doing a yoga class and found that a pose you should be able to do is challenging? 

Feeling stuck or inflexible in a posture may not be just a tight muscle. It can be old feelings you haven’t let go of yet. Unexpressed emotions become stored in the body and create physical tightness, stress, tension, and even pain over time. Yoga is an excellent tool for releasing emotional tension in the body and healing, and  If you really want to heal, why not join a yoga retreat in Cambodia?

Yoga strengthens your physical, mental, and emotional connection creating healing on all levels.

During yoga classes, you begin to untangle muscular tension, and this process can also release the associated emotions stored in your muscles. Taking part in a yoga class increases your capacity to process difficult emotions and past traumas. As you strengthen your body and find more relaxation within yourself, your emotions feel safe to be released and expressed.

We see it all the time with people who come to our yoga retreat in Cambodia. After attending one or two classes, people are confronted with strong emotions that seem to come from nowhere. They find themselves laughing or crying for no apparent reason, not understanding why this is happening. 

The thing is that laughing or crying in a yoga class are good indications of emotional release. You don’t even need to know what is the past event connected to this emotion. You can just allow it to happen and be grateful for yoga practices and yourself for making an effort, especially if you make a bigger commitment for your well-being, like joining a yoga retreat.

So what’s actually happening when we’re experiencing strong emotions during a yoga class or retreat? When you experience an intense, emotionally charged event, the energy of traumatic experiences gets bound up in your body. Even your mind can create emotional events, for example, when you are worried and anxious about the future. These unresolved emotions get kept in the body’s organs, joints, muscles, and connective tissues. When untreated, these emotions stay in the body, sometimes even for years, influencing your behavior, way of thinking, beliefs, and choices without you being aware of it.

At our yoga retreat in Cambodia, we emphasize becoming aware of this body-mind-action connection and teaching practices that help detox both physically and emotionally. 

For example, according to Chinese medicine, excessive irritability and anger can affect the liver and result in multiple ailments, including menstrual pain, headache, redness of the face and eyes, dizziness, and dry mouth. Alternatively, an imbalance in the liver can result in bad moods. 

Other emotions and their related organs include: Anger and the liver, Fear and the kidney, Sadness and grief with the lung, and Worry with the spleen.

Yoga enters this point of connection between body- mind- – action and does something quite unique: it operates in the place where these emotions, experiences, and traumas are often stored, and when combined with awareness and proper action (yoga asana), it manifests the ability to release it. 

Here are a few yogic tools for emotional release

Yogic Healing Breaths

The slow, deep pranayama breathing of yoga allows you to feel and pay attention to subtle energy. This breathwork increases awareness of the energetic body, thus giving space for our emotions.

Humming and Mantra Chanting

Making sounds and chanting mantras, especially while holding a yoga posture, let tension and emotions to release from the body. Mantras also clear the subconscious mind by bringing unprocessed past events and emotions to the surface so we can deal with them and let them go. 

Awareness in the Moment

The deep inner focus cultivated in yoga naturally allows you to become aware of forgotten emotions. As our inner light shines brighter, the more you can see within the forgotten corners of the self.

Yoga asana

Here are some excellent yoga asanas in your daily practice for emotional release and balance. Try to hold these poses for 5-10 minutes when you practice. Of course, you know your body, so hold as long as you can and use support when needed. The important thing is to feel the tension in the body release and give time for the energy to move freely for healing and emotional release. Be present with any emotions or memories that arise. Show compassion for yourself and the past.