My yogini mate Claudine once told me of a time when she was attending Pio’s class at a gym. During Savasana, she just found herself in tears.

Hearing that was strange to me. Tears? During yoga?

But last night, after a very intense yoga workout, Pio made us go into the backbend asanas. We began with the Plow, moving into Bridge, going back up into Shoulderstand/Plow. Then he made us do the Wheel as well as the Fish pose with both feet in the air.

All backbends, all directed at the fourth chakra…..the heart.

And as he led us into Savasana, he asked us to release all stress, tension and negative energy and direct it to a person/s who we loved and appreciated. For months, I had been under a lot of tension coming from different sources and after the hectic, sleep-depriving Christmas holiday in the province, I returned to Manila feeling my dizzy spells all over again. So as he asked us to focus on releasing our tensions as we got into Savasana, I followed along. Before I realized it, I found myself crying silently, tears rolling down my cheeks. It did not stop flowing until the end when I realized that Pio had silently left for another class and Trin had taken over to end it calmly, in a dark room, with a single lighted candle in the middle of the shala.

Claudine was beside me and after class I told her I had experienced tears. I knew she understood what I was talking about.

I found out in several yoga forums that backbends do raise the emotions and there have been many yogis, male and female alike, who have written about experiencing tears after doing backbends. Rightfully, the Sanskrit name of the Wheel Pose, which I always thought was called Urdhva Dhanurasana, is also known as Chakrasana.. after the heart chakra!

On the Hyptalk.com site, it describes the heart chakra as follows:

The fourth chakra is the heart chakra. The physical location of the heart chakra is in the middle of the chest. The Glandular connection is the thymus, which is responsible for building a strong immunity from pain and disease. The body parts affected by the heart chakra are the heart, lungs, pericardium, and circulation.

Emotionally, the Heart Chakra affects our experience of love for ourselves and others. The Heart Chakra allows us to feel joy, compassion, and peace and enriches our relationships.

As you learn to open your heart chakra, you feel more love for yourself and others. You have peace of mind and are able to cultivate peace. You experience a connection with others and see other people in the world as equals. You are able to find joy in your life.

It was a surreal but wonderful experience to release emotions under such unlikely circumstances and I am just slowly trying to understand how this release is actually a healing process for the mind, body and spirit. My tears were unexpected and spontaneous and for a while, I was able to let go of whatever was bottled up inside me. If just for that, last night’s yoga was a totally new experience that led me down another path of self-awareness.

And it turned out to be more comforting rather than awkward.

I bow in gratitude to my teacher Pio who was an instrument in this personal experience.