Have you ever felt your blood pressure rise and breath quicken during times of acute stress? Have you ever trembled with excitement? If so, you know that trauma, emotions and memories can show up in our physical bodies in a variety of ways. Last week, I touched on the koshas, energetic layers that make up the body’s physical and subtle forms. From the perspective of the koshas, we know that what we feel emotionally effects us physically, whether the catalyst is considered positive (joy, excitement, laughter) or negative (grief, sadness, depression). But what to do we do when we experience something that feels nearly incurable, such as a broken heart?
This beautiful piece by a yogi who lost both her partner and mother within the same year provides a well-lit example of how a grieving heart can lead to physical distress. In this case, her heartache turned into an arrhythmia that could have required medication and surgery to cure. Rather than following the advice of her doctor, the author followed her physical and emotional intuition, and opted to turn to her yogic knowledge to heal her pain. Eventually, after a long period of committed, heart-centered yoga practice, the author’s heart issues resolved.
