does anyone else cry during yoga?

[jollo]

I get periodically overwhelmed with emotion, thing it's all the breathing and awareness of body etc. Sometimes I just want to wail and cry. I find it a bit embarrassing in a class and usually try to stifle it. Does anyone else feel like this? Xx

Yes!! Especially in hip-opening poses like pigeon. I also get irrationally angry during backbending from time to time. I read that it's to do with "storing" emotions in certain parts of the body.

I have - but only as a result of getting too fat to do the poses properly...

Gloopy

OP - Yes, when I am especially sad to start with (like the time when a friend had recently passed away). There is something about turning inwards and concentrating on your breathing that brings forth one's emotions.

Otherwise, no.

I stopped going to church because I found it very calming and kept crying. Maybe watch something sad and let it out before you go to yoga to save embarrassment OP?

I cried during every single pregnancy yoga class I took. Nothing to do with the yoga, I suspect, or the pregnancy, but the instructor, a very strict unfluffy German, used to walk around during a bit where we lay resting under blankets, and gently pull the blanket over your feet If they weren't covered, and something about that got me thinking every time about how I had to try to be a better mother than my mother was to this baby, and I got very upset.

This happened to me the first time I did yoga at the bit where you lie down at the end quietly. Mortifying. Tears dripping into my ears and the only thing I had handy to stifle the sniffles was a sweaty sock I'd cast aside.

I'm not sure I believe the storing emotions in certain places thing, but I can deal with the idea that endorphins plus floaty music and lavender oil scents and relaxation can break down certain inhibitions.

Anyway, was quite unexpected at the time.

"thinking every time about how I had to try to be a better mother than my mother was to this baby"

Sorry, Cote, that probably sounds insanely melodramatic. My parents weren't abusive, they were poor and ignorant and clueless about the world, and didn't have any energy left over for being loving. I'm fine with it generally, but something about the gentleness of what felt like being tucked in at the yoga class used to get me in the gut every week. (For somewhat similar reasons I turned out to be a dreadful candidate for natal hypnotherapy! )

I'm big on tucking in and hugs as a mother.

End of derail.

It is part of it. Accept it for what it is and it will pass. Good teachers know this and will be supportive.

Don't try and repress or avoid it.

I did a lot of my yoga crying when I was a bikram regular, it was so hot and humid no one could tell.

It's a well known phenomenon among Mysore practitioners that certain points in each series often release emotions, including crying.

Yoga mirrors and works on our internal emotional life. It's part of the point and reason for doing it.

Yes, once or twice, usually during the relaxation at the end. It's part of why it's so good for you I think. Kind of an emotional detox.

thanks, glad to know it's not just me! Feel it's probably kind of cathartic albeit embarrassing... would like to just let it flow but not that good at this sort of thing...

I used to teach yoga it's very very common

i hate heat and bikram yoga was really bad. i cried and got angry with the teacher. it was awful. i much prefer the ashhtanga yoga i do now. its tough but its not hot. im not good with heat!!!

I'm with you Sasha - love Ashtanga, hate heat. I don't know why people do that to themselves in Bikram classes.

I now do Vinyasa classes outside, in fresh air. It's the best

I cry on my mat most days. Some days o do t get past child's pose. Just let it all out there and then get back to my day.

Let it out.

Worried about this for my practice tonight! I haven't done crying before (but am feeling weepy today hence the worrying) but have done frustrated and angry before! I have such a mental battle with myself for the first 15 minutes of practice! Its how I know I need to continue.

My pilates teacher was telling me about the psoas muscle and about how you lie on a ball on a certain part of it you can end up feeling very weepy. Theres a theory we store emotions there.

When I was doing a lot of pilates it used to often make me cry. I would come home and sob.I put it down to some sort of physical memory of being assaulted.

Yoga with Adriene's affirmations have made me cry if I'm having a bad day or feeling particularly emotional about something. My classes though are very upbeat with lots of laughter, so no risk of crying in them thankfully!

There's a book called "the body keeps the score" which explains all about how our body holds trauma and how yoga is one way of processing it. Totally normal and healthy. Let it out!

I'm quite practical. I can be imaginative but don't believe pseudo science, but I have definitely had the feeling of stored emotions being released. I am certain we ..I..use body tension to squash feelings..I used to be very emotionally in tune, but list it when some family members died and I lost a job in a way that really unsettled my idea of self. Now I've found some great classes, yoga has really helped..with the odd consequence of my realising I had so many things right 20years ago and was in line with what my heart wanted and ignored it. Now I feel like that again..and feel.like I am looking out of different eyes at a life I don't quite remember creating that totally doesn't fit the real me at all.

Yoga and releasing tension in long tense muscles certainly does something.

Yes, I do find myself tearful in classes too...sometimes in the bit at the end my teacher says 'be thankful to all life" or something and I feel quite emotional.