Feeling expressions in the change of time
I like to talk and write about heart qualities because I think that we Germans are basically very warm people. In the world, however, we are more rational, sober and factual. The rich emotional world of great romantics, such as J.W. Goethe, you seek in vain in German contemporary literature. And even in the versatile yoga world, a few years ago, it was more emphasized to correct physically and talk factual than to perceive and allow feelings and use a poetic language.
What emotional language can achieve in yoga
When I started teaching Yin Yoga, I realized that I had previously used a very reduced, sober language of teaching, and I started to expand my vocabulary. Another yoga teacher attested to me in a workshop, I would express myself romantically. He meant that as a compliment, but it also unsettled him. At first it irritated him to see that this expression in connection with the Yin Yoga Praxis led to the participants experienced very moving, sometimes deeply touched emotional conditions. But now, like many other yoga teachers, he has recognized what a liberation it means for many people to find access to their emotional level again.
Then maybe a few tears flow, which often starts a long overdue inner Katharsis. If that can finally be there, which has no room in the exhausting everyday life of the functioning, the healing effects can spread to all areas of life. Perhaps we now realize that we have not listened to ourselves for far too long and have passed our own needs. Emotional cleaning can cause us to pay more attention to ourselves again and maybe even change our lives in a positive direction if we take the message seriously.
Learn to feel again
I notice in my lessons that many people are drawn to Yin Yoga for this reason: finally feeling themselves and feeling more. This is a logical consequence when we look back on something historically. Germany is a special case in the world when it comes to feeling and self-esteem. This is not only due to the two world wars and the resulting feeling of guilt. During the Third Reich, literature was spread, the young mothers were recommended that they no longer breastfeed their babies, but to give them the vial. That advised them to no longer wear their babies on their body, but in the stroller, and let them sleep alone. Mothers should put their children off when they cried and not react to their needs. Many women lost the relationship to their natural femininity and intuition, and many children experienced slight to heavy binding trauma. Many of these “advices” can still be found in educational guides today. So it becomes understandable when we find a certain cold and numbness, especially in people who had to process such experiences in their early childhood.
But we can learn what we have forgotten again. A direct and clear access to the rich emotional world, which in my view we all have in us, is worthwhile. Because we can live much nicer and more intense with joy, passion, enthusiasm, compassion and love. However, access to this lies in the unpleasant to painful feelings. They don't exist without the other. The following applies: the braver we are ready to face the "dark" side in us, the more we can experience the other side. The further the pendulum swings in one direction, the further it swings into the other: if we allow our anger, we can also feel our joy. If we allow our sadness, we can also feel our love again. In my work I find out that more and more people are ready. We can probably only mature to our true size not only individually, but also socially, when one heart after the other opens again.
About the author Ranja Weis:
Ranja is one of the best yoga teachers in Germany. She regularly teaches in Patrick Broome's yoga studio in Munich, where she practices Yin Yoga, Vinyasa and Yoga Nidra. Her spiritual path is characterized by meditation, yoga and working with shamans. Therefore, her yoga classes also include techniques such as trance work and various forms of energy work.
