The Role of Emotion in Yoga Practice, Part II

In Part I, I talked about how yoga practice gives us an opportunity to notice our emotions and what they may be trying to communicate to us.

I also wrote about how this practice serves you. Our emotions are the fuel for our actions! In childhood, we learn how to regulate our own emotions with our primary attachment figures. That is, we learn how we feel by relating to the people who raised us. As we grow up, we learn how to change how we feel by changing our behavior. This is called regulation, or emotion regulation, in psychology.

Yoga gives us an opportunity to update our ability to regulate our emotions. When our emotions are aligned with the actions we are taking, change and self-growth become natural.

I mentioned in Part I that, during our yoga practice, we may find out that we are feeling things that we don’t want to be feeling. One of the functions of our logical mind is to control and suppress emotion. So when we put the body in motion and breath deeply, we may find out that we have some feelings that we are not comfortable with.

You can start by noticing which emotions consistently come up for you while practicing yoga. To take that further, notice which poses bring up those emotions.

In my one-on-one work with clients, I can see what emotions are arising for my students as they practice different poses. One of my jobs is to point out what I see. Often, people are surprised! The first step to using emotions to create change is to notice them.

One helpful practice for difficult emotions is a pranayama practice. Pranayama is the regulation of the breath through certain techniques and exercises. Bumble bee breath is a pranayama practice that can alleviate anxiety and calm agitated thoughts. The practice lengthens the exhalation without needing to strain to do so. You can read more about it and practice the technique here: https://www.yogajournal.com/.amp/practice/buzz-away-the-buzzing-mind.

That said, step 1 of using your emotions in yoga practice is just to notice what you’re feeling. If you are able to consistently notice one or several emotions, you can give yourself kudos. Your awareness of your emotions, and thus, your emotional intelligence, has increased.

In Part III, I’ll share some more specific yoga practices for working with your emotional energy. Stay tuned!