Meditation and crying.

[alpenguin]

I’ve been doing some yoga lately and at the end of the dvd they have a meditative period of reflection and focus. It’s lovely. Thing is, I’m buzzing with happy hormones after exercise, feeling better than I have done emotionally and physically in years and yet I sit with tears streaming down my face.

Thankfully I’m in lockdown so not in any group setting but I cannot hold back it just starts and it doesn’t stop until I’m standing up and done with the dvd.

I don’t know anyone who does yoga or meditation to ask if this is normal or why it happens. So mumsnet, am I some weird bag of unknown sadness waiting to explode or is this a normal response?

I think it's fairly normal, I've shed a few tears and fallen asleep at the end of my online yoga class during the meditation part. I feel like yoga is the perfect blend of physical and emotional release if that makes sense?

Yes, it's a normal and common experience. I used to meditate every day without fail and I often experienced powerful emotional release. It was like therapy to me.

I’ve seen it happen but it hasn’t happened to me (mainly because despite trying really hard to like it I hate yoga and meditation & with an ADHD brain is like herding cats in my head & whilst everyone in the room is in a calm zen like state or crying or whatever I am trying with every fibre of my being not to talk, laugh or run out of the room..). Your response sounds far more normal!

What dvd is it @alpenguin? Sounds really good.

Happens to me when I have a massage which is not at all embarrassing

Yes, crying is very common.

My (completely unscientific!) theory is that everybody has trapped hormones in various spots in their body from past events. These hormones were flying around the body then were just bunged into the nearest cell / muscle at the time. Doing yoga gives you a massage internally so the movement and stretching wrings out all these old trapped hormones, like a masseuse working out a knot in your muscle, so the emotions are released back into your bloodstream and you feel them again.

I’ve heard people fart during the relaxation, but never cry.