Yoga & the metaphor of bending over backwards: life written into our body

  My yoga teacher often refers to back bends as opening our heart and releasing negativity.

While doing moves that bend backward I stretch across the front of my chest while simultaneously allowing my shoulders to drop and relax. I let my shoulder blades fall gently down my back and then I can feel my heart expand and open.

So, while doing back bends yesterday the phrase “bending over backwards” came to my mind. How, when we bend over backwards, metaphorically, we make a real effort. We put our heart into what we are doing, for ourselves or for some one else. When someone bends over backwards for us we certainly feel their generosity, effort as an act of caring or love, a action from the heart.

Each move in Yoga works not only with our physical body, but also with our emotions and where they are being held in our body. By moving into, breathing into different parts of our body, in different combinations we work to release stuck energy. In every yoga class each person has areas of fluidity and stretch and areas of tightness and resistance depending on their life experiences.

Forward bends encourage introspection and are very grounding.

Back bends are exhilarating and allow emotions to surface and release.

Inversions (headstand, shoulder-stand, and handstand) enable us to change our perspective, after all we have turned our world upside down.

Balancing poses promote inward focus and calmness.

Twists help us release what we don’t need (on all levels) and get us out of habitual patterns of movement.