You can’t force your heart open

Sometimes it takes effort to open the heart, both figuratively and literally. This week, I am experiencing some of that.

Part of it is lack of time. If I don’t have (or make) time to sit quietly with myself, I don’t connect to who I am before the world invades me. The news has been relentless: senseless violence, deep abiding lack of empathy, under-expressed grief, hunger of all kinds. But I am ashamed to say that even more than that, I am affected by having oversubscribed myself, again and always, because I can’t seem to pare my life down to where there is space to feel.

Part of it is lack of trust. After all, I know how to move through the world with a certain armor of humor, capacity, and grit. My lived experience is that, all other things being equal, I can work myself out of whatever it is. I blame being a Taurus: we think putting our shoulder to the wheel will always get the job done. It has been a comparatively shorter time since I learned that trusting to let go keeps the wheels churning as well.

The thing is, I know what works. Yoga taught me. In order to open the frontside of my body - my shoulders, my chest, my heart - I need to strengthen the back. And to feel truly open and at ease in the poses that contain this shape - matsyasana, setu bandha sarvangasana, urdhva dhanurasana - I need to make space for the parts of me that require more time to let go and adjust: my hips, my lower back, my knees, my pelvis.

This is not complicated. I have learned to trust, respect, and honor what my body needs in yoga. Now I just need to transfer that knowledge to what my self needs in life.