Heart....contraction and expansion

Yogis,

Spread your shoulders wide, lift your heart……and notice this moment.  The sounds, smells, sensations and textures.  Your breath.   Notice everything about “now”. 

Erich Schiffmann refers to each moment as the “New Now”.   Here we are in this New Now.   And now here we are in this New Now.  Every one is unique.  Every single one an opportunity for something amazing.   In fact our entire life is just millions of New Nows strung together. 

It seems so basic.  How silly it is that we have to practice being right here, right now!  But we do.  That is why we do yoga and meditate.  To help us learn to tune in to what is already here.  Experiencing life, because life only happens in each of these New Nows. 

At the end of one of my classes this week, a student commented that “your playlist for heart always seems so sad”.  It stopped me in my tracks.  She was right.   Darn!!!  Somehow I thought I was going to get through the Heart chakra weeks this time without speaking to sorrow…………..But I realize that wouldn’t be right.

Often when we hear the term “open your heart”, we picture the arms spread, heart lifted and joy filled.  Or the vision of opening the heart in order to love another, or to walk through life in bliss.   And vice versa, the term “closed heart” paints a picture of one who has been wounded, filled with sadness, or lacking the love of others.  But my vision of an open heart is one that can be in each New Now through it all – joy, sadness, love, sorrow, laughter and tears.   Experiencing them all fully.  Diving deep in to our humanness. 

Opening to joy is easy.  The challenge is opening to sadness

We all have sorrow.  As children we could go from pure joy to sadness and back again without hesitation.  But from a young age we are told not to cry.  Not to be down.   Sadness makes people uncomfortable.  So we learned to keep it at bay.  But sorrow and joy are just two sides of the same penny.   One can’t exist without the other.  Tears of laughter and tears of grief come from the same well.   So to open the heart we have to learn to be comfortable in the uncomfortable space of sorrow (that is why we built that strength in our belly!)

When we want to strengthen and open any part of the body we move it in both directions.  To open our backs we do both forward folds and backbends.  We need both.  To open our ankles we do things that both point and flex our foot.   It is no different with the heart.

Sorrow and grief draw us in.  They contract and squeeze the heart, making the heart feel heavy.  The exhale.  The closing of the fist.   While joy, gratitude and love expand and stretch the heart, providing a sense of lightness and space.   The inhale.  The open palm.  And just like our breath, the deeper and more complete we can allow our exhales to be,  the fuller our inhales become.  Relaxing into both. 

So  allow sorrow and “feel” it without resisting.   Let it pull your energy downward and then once complete, the joy can fill in the newly created emptiness and lift you skyward.    The deeper the sorrow, the more expansive the love.   Contraction.....expansion....contraction.....expansion creating a wider range each time.

Finally, Madam Dandelion has followed us upward on our journey.  She has moved from the fiery strength of the sun to the complete faith it takes to surrender to this element of air.   Faith – no doubt, no worry.    The wind will carry her wherever she is meant to be. 

 

 

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater thar sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

            ~Kahil Gibran

Filled with life,

SARAH