A few days ago, I got rip roaring angry. I felt like one of those cartoon characters that I used to watch every Saturday morning when I was a kid -- the pressure cooker inside of me got hotter and hotter until it finally blew, resulting in steam coming out of my ears.
The holistic model of yoga (think Koshas) can be understood clearly when experiencing anger (the emotional body) -- your physical body changes (your muscles tense, your face gets red), your breath body changes (your breathing gets choppier, shorter, and more rapid), your mind changes (your thoughts become negative), and your personality changes (you become more aggressive). Change one of these bodies and all the others are affected.
One of my favorite ways for dealing with anger is working with the breath body -- I make a conscious effort to change my breathing. I lengthen my exhales, sometimes retaining my exhale. Often times I'll work with anger in a non-yoga fashion -- I'll dump the emotional charge by journaling. Sometimes I'll even deal with it in a Buddhist way -- I'll send Metta to the subject of my anger.
How you deal with it isn't the most critical thing here -- it's THAT you deal with it. Unresolved or tamped down anger can cause vata prakopa. What, you ask, is vata prakopa? It literally translates as "angry wind" and can found in many Ayurvedic texts. The concept of vata prakopa is simple -- anything we do that agitates the breath causes us suffering. Often, this suffering results in illness (everything from flatulence to infertility to irritable bowel syndrome).
Think about it -- unexpressed anger lodges itself in the body causes muscles to tighten and breath restriction. Over time, this stress (both emotional and physical) causes disease. It's the ultimate stress-related illness. Feeling/expressing/diffusing the anger enables the prana to flow more freely. When it moves freely throughout the system, we are healthy, we feel better.
How can we affect the flow of prana? Two ways:
- Breath -- pranayama or conscious breathing
- Attention -- mudra or bandhas
The other day, I went with the first way and then I went off the yoga grid by dumping my emotional charge in a journal. The result -- I calmed down quickly and I easily put the situation behind me. No angry wind here!
If you'd like to read a bit more on this topic, click here for an interesting article from the Ayurveda standpoint.
If you're a fan of dealing with emotions by working with your hips during asana, click here for some excellent hip opening advice (complete with video) from fellow yogi Eoin Finn.
A word to all of you wise yogis out there -- don't get your wind angry!
Namaste!
A few days ago, I got rip roaring angry. I felt like one of those cartoon characters that I used to watch every Saturday morning when I was a kid -- the pressure cooker inside of me got hotter and hotter until it finally blew, resulting in steam coming out of my ears.
The holistic model of yoga (think Koshas) can be understood clearly when experiencing anger (the emotional body) -- your physical body changes (your muscles tense, your face gets red), your breath body changes (your breathing gets choppier, shorter, and more rapid), your mind changes (your thoughts become negative), and your personality changes (you become more aggressive). Change one of these bodies and all the others are affected.
One of my favorite ways for dealing with anger is working with the breath body -- I make a conscious effort to change my breathing. I lengthen my exhales, sometimes retaining my exhale. Often times I'll work with anger in a non-yoga fashion -- I'll dump the emotional charge by journaling. Sometimes I'll even deal with it in a Buddhist way -- I'll send Metta to the subject of my anger.
How you deal with it isn't the most critical thing here -- it's THAT you deal with it. Unresolved or tamped down anger can cause vata prakopa. What, you ask, is vata prakopa? It literally translates as "angry wind" and can found in many Ayurvedic texts. The concept of vata prakopa is simple -- anything we do that agitates the breath causes us suffering. Often, this suffering results in illness (everything from flatulence to infertility to irritable bowel syndrome).
Think about it -- unexpressed anger lodges itself in the body causes muscles to tighten and breath restriction. Over time, this stress (both emotional and physical) causes disease. It's the ultimate stress-related illness. Feeling/expressing/diffusing the anger enables the prana to flow more freely. When it moves freely throughout the system, we are healthy, we feel better.
How can we affect the flow of prana? Two ways:
The other day, I went with the first way and then I went off the yoga grid by dumping my emotional charge in a journal. The result -- I calmed down quickly and I easily put the situation behind me. No angry wind here!
If you'd like to read a bit more on this topic, click here for an interesting article from the Ayurveda standpoint.
If you're a fan of dealing with emotions by working with your hips during asana, click here for some excellent hip opening advice (complete with video) from fellow yogi Eoin Finn.
A word to all of you wise yogis out there -- don't get your wind angry!
Namaste!