Yoga and expression of emotions

I'd like to know if anyone else practices yoga, and how it may benefit your emotional life. Do you find that yoga (or any exercise that necessitates attention to the body) helps you also get in touch with your emotions?

When I speak of yoga, I am only referring to stretching exercises, and not to any spiritual aim. People can, and do, practice yoga as part of their spirituality, but I want to share my experience of using yoga as a tool to expressing pent-up emotions. In my case, I think this helps treat my avoidant tendencies.

Generally, I am out of touch with my body. For as long as I can remember, I have lived out of my head. But about a year and a half ago, a doctor introduced meditation and yoga as a means of helping me cope with a depressive episode, anxiety, and PTSD.

The doctor explained that my body retains emotions until they are expressed. If I numb myself long enough and deny expression of emotions, this will show itself in various body pains and illnesses. This is definitely true for me, as my current experience attests.

The past few weeks, I have really been feeling awful. I have had intense body pains, tightness, especially in my back, shoulders and chest. My breathing has been strained and short. These symptoms are directly related to difficulties I've been having setting boundaries with a friend, and putting myself into new social situations.

By avoiding setting boundaries, I have ignored taking responsibility for my own well-being. This denial of valid feelings has resulted in real physical pain.

Today, I decided to put on my yoga CD, and devote 40 minutes towards the routine. The result was powerful. Almost immediately, I began sobbing. This continued, more or less, throughout the entire 40 minutes of exercises. The more I stretched, the more I sobbed, and the more I felt tightness and pain melt away. My chest felt opened and I could breathe more normally again.

Something else happened while I was stretching and sobbing (this sounds like an awful experience, but actually it was quite restorative). I became aware of the negative voice and what it has been saying to me the past few weeks. I realized that I have been putting myself down for not setting boundaries, and for not being super-social-butterfly. The voice has been saying to me, "You are a complete and utter LOSER because you cannot stand up for yourself and set boundaries. You are a TERRIBLE PERSON for avoiding your friend instead of setting boundaries. You are a LOSER because you find it draining to be social with new people. You are a LOSER because you find it exceedingly difficult to talk to strangers at church and elsewhere..." etc etc.

When I became aware of what I have been telling myself, I sobbed all the more. But I also vigorously refuted that voice. I told myself that I choose not to rate my whole self on the fact that I have difficulties socializing and in setting boundaries. I told myself that yes, it is unfortunate that I have difficulty doing these things, but that I am doing my best right now, and that I am NOT a terrible person. I am a good, unique and worthwhile person simply because I am a human being, alive and breathing. I refuse to put myself down for having fallible human traits.

All of this happened from doing yoga. It's a very good tool for me. I need to commit myself to doing it regularly again.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Sometimes I just feel a need to share, and hope it helps someone else. I'm interested in knowing if any others have similar experiences.

trence,
I've had similar experiences with exercise, and I've asked psych and medical doctors why it seems that other people seem to get psychological benefits from exercise and I just end up crying all the time during it. All they kept saying was 'it shouldn't be like that. Your body should be releasing chemicals that make you cry less!' I know that when I get a professional massage, I'm emotional later that day or the next day, and I've at least heard that that reaction is common.

Do you have any theories on why we cry during physical activity? Is it just our body letting go of all the emotions that we've kept in too long?

I think by allowing physical feelings and experiences we learn to allow other feelings a bit more then we were used to.

PinkAngel467 wrote:trence,
I've had similar experiences with exercise, and I've asked psych and medical doctors why it seems that other people seem to get psychological benefits from exercise and I just end up crying all the time during it. All they kept saying was 'it shouldn't be like that. Your body should be releasing chemicals that make you cry less!' I know that when I get a professional massage, I'm emotional later that day or the next day, and I've at least heard that that reaction is common.

Do you have any theories on why we cry during physical activity? Is it just our body letting go of all the emotions that we've kept in too long?

Well, my meditation teacher, who is also a doctor and psychologist, said that it was quite normal to cry during yoga and even meditation. In fact, he shared that he often breaks down sobbing, for no apparent reason. He said it wasn't important to try to figure out why we are crying if it happens. Sometimes our bodies just need to release pent up emotions.

My theory is that I have a lot of pain that needs to be released. Sometimes, I will actually start laughing and have waves of joy while I am stretching.

My teacher also told us that researchers have discovered that we actually store emotions physically in our body, so with any bodywork we can begin to release these emotions. I am surprised your doctors think that crying shouldn't be one of the results of bodywork. Why not? Crying is an excellent way to release stored emotion. Some of us cry more than others. I often cry even when I am happy (as in during a very touching scene in a movie)!

This is my first time posting. I saw this thread and wanted to jump in. I don't have AvPD but can relate to a lot of the experiences on this board.

I've done a lot of bodywork/massage, running, weight lifting, and yoga in my day. There are definitely two types of exercise. Aerobic exercise like running creates that biochemical endorphin "high" which allows some people to escape and, of course, feel good from exercising.

Yoga (and bodywork/massage), on the otherhand, stir up the repressed emotions housed in our musculature, otherwise known as emotional armor. I learned about emotional armor from reading about it and experienced it via bodywork/massage. Stirring it up can be very emotionally provocative but, also, very healing. The idea is that emotions that could never get expressed (e.g. in childhood) get trapped in the body's musculature. They can be released once provoked and then expressed, hence, the crying that can come after a yoga session. This is also why "healthy" communication is about discussing and talking about issues right away. The next time someone makes you mad, tune into where you feel it in your body. I guarantee you will notice that emotion somewhere. And if you don't notice it right away keep asking yourself the same question in future situations. If you stay on this path, you will eventually "hear" the feedback your body can give you.

It's taken me years to become aware of the emotional signals my body can articulate. I was completely shutdown as a child. Now I can feel my emotional states manifest in my body and use this feedback to guide me and help me make decisions. It's amazing what an incredible tool this is if we can get in touch with it and hone it. I, also, believe a large part of this feedback is what intuition is.

Two books you might want to look into are:

The body reveals: an illustrated guide to the psychology of the body by Ron Kurtz and Hector Prestera, MD. and ...

When the body says no: understanding the stress-disease connection by Gabor Mate, MD.

It's also interesting how our language expresses this mind-body connection in expressions such as:

when we're nervous: butterflies in my stomach;
dealing with a nasty person: they are a pain in the neck;
unfriendliness: cold shoulder
loss of love: feeling heartache; etc.

I hope some of this makes sense. It was completely greek and la-la stuff to me in the beginning but it sounds like you already have some of this information, trence.

I hope you continue the yoga.

I've only done limited yoga before in the past and felt tension release, so crying makes sense.

I'll give it a try and see what happens!

Thanks for sharing.

Bluebeam, thanks for posting some very interesting stuff. It's good to know that yoga can be so helpful, and also to know that bodywork=massage (didn't know that, lol, I had assumed it was another word for yoga).

I probably should have clarified more what I meant by “bodywork.” Bodywork is like Rolfing, Feldenkrais, Lomi, etc. It’s usually a type of body therapy done with a “therapist.” The best types of bodywork address both the tightness issues in the musculature and the emotional reactions attached to them. Yoga, on the other hand, (the types that have you do the physical postures) is really a type of bodywork, too, but it’s just done solo (though a yoga teacher will help you with getting the correct poses). Unfortunately in yoga and massage there’s no facilitation (talk therapy) in addressing/understanding the emotional stuff that comes up. But bodywork, yoga, and massage all provoke the emotional armor.

Another book reference:

Mind therapies body therapies: a consumer’s guide by George J. Feiss. (might be out of print)

This thread is amazingly interesting to me. I am familiar with the high of aerobic workout, although I have not done any sports in a long time. However, I have never experienced the other type of reaction, where repressed emotions are stirred up.

So, I signed myself up for a full body massage this Friday. I am very excited about it. The massage therapist is registered and comes with recommendations from a more experienced friend.

I wonder what will happen. Will it cause an avoidant episode or stir up emotions that lead? Or will nothing at all happen because I am analysing it to death? LOL.

Anyways, will report back either way.

Cheers,

Dragonfly.

P.S.: I am on vacation right now. Sooooo happy.

Thansk bluebeam for the added info and the book reference.

Dragonfly wrote:So, I signed myself up for a full body massage this Friday. I am very excited about it. The massage therapist is registered and comes with recommendations from a more experienced friend.

Good luck with that! I've been wanting a good massage for years now, but I haven't put much priority on it (obviously). I've only once had a professional massage, but the massage therapist wasn't strong enough, I barely felt it. I think I want a really deep massage, maybe rolfing, that bluebeam mentioned.

And have a happy vacation!