Saddle baggage

My yoga teachers tell me that the hips are the seat of emotion. The junk drawer for your body to store all sorts of feeling. By engaging the hips, we unlock the junk drawer and sometimes stuff comes flying out.

This is precisely the kind of magical mumbo-jumbo that fed my little cynical heart for years. "Emotions don't live anywhere.  They are not tangible things like pasta or tennis balls." Yeah, that sounds like something I would have said.  As it turns out, I was dead wrong.

This is one of the coolest aspects of engaging in a spiritual practice.  It continually surprises me in ways that I thought were unmovable. I can keep tell myself repeatedly that yoga is about movement and steadying my over active nervous system.  But, when I feel like crying or spontaneously laughing during a hip opening class, it's really hard to pretend it's not happening. 

This week I did the Wednesday night double-header at my favorite studio. 1.5 hours of yin (passive, deep tissue) followed by 1.5 hours of vinyasa (active, large muscle groups). Both of the classes focused intensely on the hips.  As one would expect, my hips, thighs and bum are tired and a bit sore afterwards. The surprise is that I  feel like I've been on an emotional roller coaster.  I feel totally wrung out emotionally.

I felt anxious, confident, nostalgic, jealous, joyful, sad and relaxed. Maybe these are feelings that would have come up during another 3 hour period in a day. Maybe yoga just helps you tune in to those feelings. Or maybe, just maybe, it helps to unlock the emotional junk drawer and clean it out.