Tag Archives: heart chakra

The Boston Marathon Tragedy and How Your Yoga Practice Can Help Heal the World

Posted on April 16, 2013 | 2 Comments

When I first heard of the Boston Marathon bombings, I was so angry.  Then I became scared for those I knew that were at the marathon running or were there as spectators.  Then I was sad.  Sad for those that had a beautiful, triumphant day taken from them and turned into a horrible memory.  Sad for those who were hurt and killed.  My husband runs marathons and I know how joyous and exciting marathon day is, how families race around the course to cheer on their loved ones, how you feel invincible watching the amazing feats of athleticism and inner strength.   

cropped-photo-23.jpg

Events like this make you feel helpless, too. What can I do? How can I help? How can I lessen the suffering of so many?  In preparing to teach my yoga class this morning, I was unable to ignore the events of yesterday.  I decided to teach about how our practice can help heal the world.

A personal yoga practice can look very selfish from the outside.  People practice to get stronger and more flexible, to calm their own mind, to relieve their stress.  But when we take a deeper look at those reasons, they really are for the benefit of others.  When we are healthier and stronger, we have more energy to engage with our family and to give to others.  When our minds are calm, we are more present with those we are with.  Our minds aren’t wandering, thinking about problems and decisions that need to be made.  When we have less stress, we don’t yell at our children, we get less angry with our spouses, we engage better with our co-workers.  Your yoga practice helps to heal your small circle of family, friends and co-workers.

earthlovegaiaPhoto credit to: http://soulgarden.me/profiles/blogs/the-world-of-love-is-here

But your yoga practice can heal a wider circle of people as well.  When we do yoga, we open our hearts to those that are suffering and to those we may be in conflict with.  We breathe into our heart centers to create space for those that need to be lifted up.  We create space so that we can surround them with our love and light and peace.  Your yoga practice is healing for the relationships in our life that may be hurt or struggling, where connection has been lost.

How can yoga heal the world?  When we practice yoga, peace and love, patience and courage flow from us, positively affecting everyone we come in contact with.  If a majority of people were practicing yoga, this would create a shift in the consciousness of a community, a city, a country, a planet.  It all begins with one person choosing to practice their yoga, on and off the mat, to begin to heal the world.  You are that one person.  I ask you to dedicate your practice to those in your life who are suffering and who you have lost connection with.  Open your heart to them, surround them with light, love and peace, and allow the healing to begin.

Joy in Wheel

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Fourth Chakra, Yoga

Tagged , , ,

7 Ways to Balance Your Heart Chakra

Posted on March 23, 2013 | 1 Comment

1- Try this three part breath.  Breathing is 100 times more powerful than any physical asanas that we can do.  

2- Closet check! Look around your closet- is there any green? Look around your house? Any green?  You may notice an abundance of green or a complete lack.  I photo (36)have a green “issue”- anything that is a bright springy green, I am all over it.  My own heart chakra imbalance is trying to “self-regulate” through my rabid love of the color green.  I was helpless when faced with this green polka dotted casserole dish!  To balance the heart chakra, begin to add some green to your life.

3- Backbends or forward bends?  That depends on how your heart chakra is out of balance.  If you are a people pleasing perfectionist that seeks approval and photo (37)acceptance from external sources, you will want to focus on forward bends and drawing yourself inward with less focus on others approval, more focus on approving and accepting yourself.  If you are introverted, critical, cold, unable to find intimacy, you will want to open your heart with a backbend.  Try camel or wheel pose.

4- Make a date… with a friend who you can totally be yourself with.  No show, no pretending, just letting your freak flag fly.  Days after I had my second son, a friend came over and offered to make dinner.  I was trying to say no, I’m fine, when she basically called me a control freak and said sit down, I am making dinner.  I was shocked, hurt, offended at first (postpartum hormones and all!), but it was a defining moment in my life…. You mean, people can know one of my secrets (I am a control freak) and STILL love me? I don’t have to be perfect for someone to love me? WHAT?!?!!? It was intensely liberating and scary all at once.  I am forever grateful to that friend who taught me an amazing lesson in unconditional love that day.

5- Journal time: From whom do you seek acceptance and approval?  What conditions do you put on yourself?  Do you find yourself saying “When I lose weight, get a job, aren’t so messy, finish this project, then I will love myself/then I will be worthy/deserving of someone else’s love?  What would life feel like if you stopped caring about what anyone thought?  What if YOU approved of yourself?

6- Posture check- stand up against a wall with your heels touching the wall.  Notice the position of your head and shoulders.  Are they pressing back into the wall or are they forward leaning?  If they are forward, bring your head and shoulders back to touch the wall.  What feeling does that bring up in you?  Do you feel like you are sticking the “girls” out too far, showing off, acting all high and mighty? Is it physically painful because your chest and shoulder muscles have shortened and tightened and your back muscles are weak and overstretched from habitually bad posture?  Try to hold this posture as you step away from the wall.  Throughout your day, return to this tall, upright position (mountain pose) until it starts to become a muscular habit.  Slouching is a symptom of a deficient heart chakra- we are burying our heart.

7- Our arms and hands are extensions of our heart chakra.  Try these qigong hand exercises and massage. 

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Asana, Fourth Chakra, pranayama

Tagged , , , , , ,

For yoga teachers: Heart Chakra Integration

Posted on October 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

In the last post, we learned a lot about the characteristics of the heart chakra.  Today we learn how to deepen your student’s connection between their life off the mat and on the mat.

Backbends are super energizing so if you are teaching a backbend focused class at night, make sure you have lots of time to neutralize the backbends.  You netutralize backbends with twists and forward folds.  First twists, then forward folds.

Some peak poses- the “big deal” poses that you build up to and that the preliminary poses lead towards and systematically warm up the other body parts for- that are great to focus on for backbends are:
-bow pose, using dancer as a standing pose to compliment
-wheel, use two straps to support students- one under the sacrum and one under the shoulderblades to help students experience the opening of the front of the body even without the arm strength or shoulder flexibility
-camel- stretching the quads and hip flexors to prepare the body for backbends

While students are resting, ask them to look at the connections in their lives.  Are they able to give love and do they feel worthy of receiving love? Do they accept themselves as they are or are they waiting for the magic xyz to happen to accept themselves? Are they critical of others? Are they a people pleaser?

Ask them how that relates to their practice on the mat…. are they always trying to please the teacher by pushing too far in a pose or trying an advanced variation for which they are not ready in order to gain attention?  Are they critical of the teacher or of other students?  Will they allow themselves to be happy when their hamstrings are not so tight?  Try to shed a light on those things that they may be saying to themselves in the course of a class.

Heart openers, backbends lift energy and mood and are wonderful for depression.  So often we hunch forward at the computer or as we are carrying our babies or driving our cars.  Backbends can help to lengthen the deltoids and pectoralis major and minor that have shortened through repeated hunching.  Our upper back muscles, especially the rhomboids, get weaker as we hunch.  Backbends strengthen back muscles and lengthen the chest muscles.

I would love to hear from you- what fourth chakra practices, series of poses, questions and ideas do you weave into your classes?  I am always ready to learn from you, my friends.

Blessings of love and light,
Joy

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Fourth Chakra, Yoga Teachers

Tagged , , , , , ,

Your Heart Chakra: Finding Connection, Compassion and Contentment

Posted on October 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

Open Your Heart to Yourself and to Others

Welcome to the fourth chakra, the center of love and compassion for yourself and for others.  Last week we practiced backbends as we explored the idea of finding balance in the heart center.

The fourth chakra is located around the physical heart and encompasses the lungs, heart, shoulders, arms and hands.  It vibrates to the color green and is the balancing point between the lower three chakras and upper three chakras.  Fourth chakra energy is associated with how you relate to others, how you are able to love and be loved, how accepting you are of yourself and others.

Sometimes I correlate this chakra with the directions given on an airplane to parents: put the air mask on yourself first, then put it on your kids.  Just as you are no good to your kids if you are passed out (or whatever happens if you don’t put on the mask!), you have to love yourself and accept yourself before you can give or receive that from anyone else.  If you are always judging and critiquing yourself, there is no way you can let that go when you relate to others in your life.

A deficient amount of heart chakra energy manifests in your life as fearing intimacy, being unable to connect with others, acting and thinking in a critical and judgmental manner, suffering from depression.  Picture someone with shouders hunched forward, head down- their heart chakra is literally trying to disappear.  An excess amount of heart chakra energy means you are super loving and awesome, right?!  Wrong….. excess amounts of heart chakra energy actually means that you look for approval and acceptance from others in order to receive love. You may be a people pleaser or a martyr.

Maybe you are noticing that your heart chakra is out of balance…. what can you do to bring it into balance?  Breath work and backbends are the most important aspect of working with the heart chakra.  Do you ever get the feeling that you just can’t get enough air in- usually when you are stressed or anxious?  Try lengthening your exhale four more counts than normal, and then notice that the inhale comes in much more naturally.  Just as with the breath, when you are feeling like you are not receiving enough love and acceptance from someone, begin to love and accept that person as deeply and unconditionally as possible.  Notice how it creates an opening for love and acceptance to come into your life.  Can you give away that same unconditional love that you crave/need/want/are missing?  Try it…… you’ll like it!!!

After a day of working at your computer or carrying your baby or driving, all you want to do is roll your shoulders backs and open up your heart center.  Standing up, clasp your hands together behind your back and reach your hands towards the floor, roll your shoulders back and slide your shoulder blades towards your waist.  If it feels good, bend at the hips into a forward fold and lift your arms overhead- voila! Standing Yoga Mudra!

Another less active backbend is to take a bolster, rolled up towel or blanket or pillow and put it in the floor so that it is positioned the long way across the bottom of your shoulder blades. Let your head rest on the ground and arms open out to the side, legs can be straight or knees bent.  Breath and feel the front of your body opening to love for yourself and others.Patterns to begin to notice in your daily life that relate to your heart chakra are…..
Where, when and of whom do you feel jealous?
When do you feel critical of others? When do you feel criticized?
Are you a people pleaser?
Do you deserve to be loved or are you wait for XYZ to happen before you deserve it?
Can you accept yourself just as you are and allow yourself to be happy NOW or are you waiting to lose those five pounds, get that job, find that relationship until you can be happy?
Yoga is about noticing what is going on without judgment of yourself or of others.  Can you witness these patterns in your life and find acceptance and compassion for yourself?

Coming up tomorrow…. a post for yoga teachers on how to integrate fourth chakra topics into a yoga class.

Namaste,
Joy

For more reading on the chakras, I recommend The Chakra Balancing Workbook
by Anodea Judith.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Fourth Chakra

Tagged , , , , ,