From the Heart
The path this chapter focuses on is Bhakti, or the devotional path. Folks who follow the Bhakti Path tend to be heart-centered: caring, emotional, and sensitive. They tend to be attuned to their own feelings and those of others. Although it isn’t always the case, Bhakti Yogis tend to be empaths—perceiving others’ emotions almost as their own—and body-based. People on the Bhakti Path create because they love it. Because of this tender level of perception, many artists follow this path to at least some degree. From an enlightenment perspective, people on the path of devotion do well to dedicate themselves to a higher power or purpose, placing their efforts in the hands of love and feeling supported by the spiritual world. In this way, emotions become a tool to connection with the creative Self.
Emotionally or body-based perceivers, especially those who are more sensitive to others’ emotions, have a tendency to become overwrought. Our society tends to devalue the information and intuitive reasoning that can come through our emotional sense. This leads to problems processing through emotions and their inherent messages. Instead, we are inclined to partially or completely stifle our emotions until we become addicts or depressives, or we explode. This chapter helps you choose a healthier, unitive path. Learn to use your emotional sensibilities to inspire your creative work and connect to the inner creator. Read on to practice soothing your emotions, connecting to their source and to imagination, and expressing them. The following exercise gets you started with a yoga practice to integrate and balance emotions.
Exercise: Feeling Soothed Relaxation
This is a gentle, self-loving practice. Although it may bring up worries at first, as you practice it over time your nervous system will associate it with a chance to let those concerns go and feel more deeply soothed and relaxed.
Step 1: Settle in a comfortable place and position. You can choose a traditional relaxation posture like Corpse Pose on your back or curling up in Child’s Pose, but any position that lets you feel safe and relaxed will do. You may choose to cover yourself with a blanket and tuck it in close around you. For additional nervous system comfort, add the gentle weight of some cushions over your thighs, abdomen, and chest. Become present through a mindfulness check of body, breath, thoughts, feelings, and overall sense of connection to who you really are.
Step 2: Begin to pay attention to the moment you are in. Notice how good it feels to rest: you don’t have to serve anyone, there is no other task in front of you, even your muscles don’t have to put forth effort right now. All you have to do is be as you are. That’s okay.
Step 3: As you allow yourself to let down, you may notice unprocessed emotions, situations, or lists crop up in your mind. That’s a sign of the mind unwinding its stresses. Similarly, your feelings may appear more complex, flurried, or agitated. Yuck, step 3 is uncomfortable … just keep breathing while you feel the floor and the pillows holding you. Usually the discomfort passes and you discover an even deeper layer of relaxation and ease.
Turn to this exercise any time you need to let go of a busy day, intense feelings, or a sense of being overwhelmed. It helps you process without playing into the stresses and teaches the nervous system to stay relaxed, even when the mind becomes busy or confused.
The Creative Child
When we go home to the heart, we often move through many layers of pain before we land back in the sweetness that is or was our original state in this life. I suggest to you that is one of our greatest obstacles in being creative people: in order to truly express ourselves, we must somehow be connected to that sweet, tender presence. For most of us, that place is too tender to let go unguarded and still function in this world. I say tender because there is that sense of easily bruising. When we put ourselves out there creatively, it’s a great tenderness.
The beauty of Bhakti, the path of the heart, is that we are devoting ourselves to the higher Self first. If you are a religious person, this tenderness rests in God’s hands. If you believe in the grand design, then remember that because we are a creation on this planet (no matter what created us), we are of Creation; ergo, we are creative. When we create, whether we are tender or not, we are aligned with the divine Self. In this way, the divine Self and the inner child both have a mystical quality to them.
As we remain tender and connect to the inner child and divine Self, the Bhakti Path may require the most courage of all the paths. It may also be the path that best helps us as creators because children—even inner children of adults—are so imaginative.
How connected do you feel to that younger, inventive self? It is the part of us that is free, playful, and trusting. Do you remember feeling open, limitless, and curious about all that may be possible? When we are present in life and open to the opportunity of any given moment, we create best. The trick is that because the inner child self winds up being the sweetest and tenderest part of our adult selves, it can be painful to get or stay in touch with that inner aspect. It can be easy for the adult self to be enlightened—once we are free from the pain of our past. When we experience the klesas discussed in Part 1 of this book, we are battling with old emotional impressions and karmas. Triggers, or people/stimuli/situations that bring strong emotional reactions, are cues about unresolved pain. The following exercise has you reflect upon the childhood experiences that may be blocking your connection to freedom, imagination, and possibility. Repeat the following exercise as often as you like to discern the truth about the roots of your emotional reactions.
Exercise: Excavating the Roots of Emotionally Charged Events
This exercise gives you the opportunity to investigate the source of some of your triggers. If you have a history of abuse or trauma, it may be wise not to attempt this on your own. Bring the exercise into therapy and investigate your emotions with your counselor. If you play with this on your own and find yourself overwhelmed, please breathe slowly and contact a local crisis line to receive support. Conversely, you may enjoy the process of investigating all the emotionally charged events that occur in your everyday life. As you come to understand the source of those charges, it is as if you are diffusing the emotional time bomb within.
Step 1: Think of recent time you experienced heightened emotion. Allow the situation and emotion to reoccur and witness it. Stay connected to that observant, calm part of yourself as you call the emotion in. Notice how the emotion/situation impacts what is going on in your body. What happens to your muscles, back, abdomen, and face? Are there specific parts of your body that seem to react more than others? How is your breathing? What thoughts arise? Notice the story you tell yourself about this emotion and situation.
Step 2: Remain connected to your calm witness self as well as your body and breath. Continue relaxing, even though the emotion is heightened. Ask yourself, When was the first time I remember feeling this way? and allow whatever happens within you to happen. You may remember a few weeks ago when a similar situation arose or a long time ago when something impactful happened. Repeat your observation process from step 1 to explore the earlier exposure to this emotion as deeply as you can. Remain connected to your calm witness as you observe.
Step 3: When you have identified and observed the first time you remember feeling this way, express the emotion with movement and sound. You might flail, dance, collapse, clap, roll around on the floor, or all of these things and more! Give sound to the movement as you roar, moan, holler, laugh, hum, etc. Give over to the embodiment of the emotion and the sounds it can make. If it helps, you can put music on.
Step 4: When you feel finished with moving the emotion, rest in a relaxation posture and consciously feel yourself letting go. The Feeling Soothed Relaxation in this chapter is a good practice now.
The yogis call these trigger-reaction patterns samskara and the scientists call it neuroplasticity. Both the ancient and modern concepts speak to the idea that once we have established a pathway, we will continue to walk that same cognitive/emotional route time and again. As a conscious creator, you have the ability to choose differently. Now that you are aware of your habit and where it comes from, it is easier to be creative and ask yourself what other options are available.
Imagination & the Creative Child
There are many popular works that can help you connect to your creative essence. At some point, each of these works has you reflect upon your childhood: the pains, programming, interests, and joys that uniquely shaped you. There are a number of reasons why our inner children carry keys to our creative victories. Children are tender, imaginative, and playful. Under the best of circumstances they are not self-conscious. Really young ones don’t understand the laws of our physical reality and believe all kinds of uncanny and brilliant things are possible.
You yourself may have had some wild ideas about the way you hoped the world could be. Before I understood that television wasn’t spying on characters in their own homes, I thought that animated figures were people in another country. Their faces and houses looked different from ours, just as in my own neighborhood there were folks of varying heights, complexions, and aesthetic tastes. Connect to your own sense of imaginative possibility through the following exercise.
Exercise: Open Your Perceptions to the Magic of Life
Forget everything you think you know about the laws of life and physical reality—it’s time to play.
Step 1: Think back to when you were very little and didn’t know much about the world. Many people find it hard to connect back that far and that’s okay. Even if you don’t concretely remember being confused by cars, technology, adult relationships, church, animals, or whatever, open yourself to a sense of the world being very big. If you are really creative, you will finish out this step by crawling around your house for five to ten minutes, or staying very low, as you explore the world from the perspective of a young one.
Step 2: Now that you have connected to that sense of being much smaller than your environment, get specific about what used to confuse you or the strange ideas you may have had about life. If you don’t remember them, just let yourself be silly now and think outside of the box. For example, in addition to thinking I was a voyeur into cartoon characters’ lives, I also believed that since “God is everywhere” and outer space is so big, we probably lived in God’s foot. Maybe you thought that the bathtub drain would swallow you or the animals you saw in clouds could actually come to life. Let your mind wander back and daydream about the weird concepts you explored as a child.
Step 3: Select one of these ideas and paint it with your nondominant hand. If you have tempera paints and a largish brush like you used in preschool, all the better. Notice, as your nondominant hand struggles to convey what your brain imagines, what it is like to be in a body that doesn’t have fine motor control yet. This, too, is a remembrance of childhood.
Step 4 (optional): You may use your work from step 3 as inspiration for a truly beautiful and heartfelt adult piece.
Step 5: Now that you have opened your mind to your inner child, remain perceptive to other strange ideas and points of view that may arise in everyday life. Is that birdcall a hidden message? Does your art make more sense upside down? Do fairies live in your garden? What happens if you do everything backward?
May this childlike view of a magical world help you cultivate compassion for your ideas and emotions as they arise, as well as tether you to creative inspiration … and open your perceptions to the magic of life!
“ … As though Everything Is a Miracle … ”
If we look at the world with the eyes of a tender-hearted child or imaginative creator, then we perceive those nuances of how the world itself is fit together. Einstein had the idea of seeking meaning in every experience. If everything is a miracle, then we have a continual compass needle pointing in the direction of joy and purity. People on the Bhakti Path, who are prone to emotional sensitivity and tender reactions, also have a great capacity for joy. This is the flip side of an open heart. The gift yoga therapy brings you is a guide for elevating beyond everyday, changeable emotions and connecting to a steady, pervasive truth. Joy is a virtue. It is a sustained, soulful quality. As one on the Bhakti Path, you are predisposed for a greater capacity for joy because you are already living from a heart-centered perspective. Attuning to—or searching for—continual miracles can anchor you in a joyful sense of the everyday. The following exercise begins to cultivate the skill of perceiving miracles.
Exercise: Discover Signposts That You Are On the Creative Path
One of the ways to open your bhakti heart and truly fall in love with life is to perceive the miracles all around you. If you are the creator of your life then there must be some kind of signpost or way of marking the true path. Let’s play with that idea:
Step 1: Have an intention. Know what you are creating. This is important in the broad sense and you have been setting intentions throughout this book. Now, refine one of those intentions to something very specific. What do you need or want from today? In time, you can create more amazing things; for now, pick something small. An event you could dismiss as coincidence is easier for your nay-sayers to deal with until they grow accustomed to your creative prowess. Some examples might be to cheer someone up, have your big project finish smoothly, find change on the sidewalk, or encounter a cute animal. Note that it is wise to set intentions that benefit more people than just yourself.
Step 2: Look at life with the eyes of a creator. Intend to create magic. Although you created a specific intention in step 1, remember that there may be a larger force at play (one with a sense of humor, I might add!) and you are actually cocreating miracles with this benevolent force. Hold your intention with you but stay open to other ways the world may offer you joy, opportunity, and ease.
Step 3: At the end of the day, record all the happy coincidences and moments of joy that you experienced.
Step 4: Repeat this process every day for a determined period (I recommend a moon cycle: four weeks). Notice that the coincidences amplify and you grow more adept at manifesting your pure intention.
As you establish a daily practice of observing, cooperating with, and even cultivating wonder in life, you grow closer to your innocence and true creative vision. Any pure thing we practice with dedication bolsters our hearts and connects us to something deeper within ourselves.
Devotion & the Bhakti Path
As we deepen our yoga, artistic, or other spiritual practice, bhaktas’ hearts continue to strengthen and open. In the depth of our soulful hearts is a deep devotion to our practice: we love it. And practice loves us in return. We do not practice in order to receive rewards; however, the rewards are implicit: when we pray or meditate, our physiology sets to a more healthful state (for ourselves and others). When we create, we free our expression and end up with a personal reflection more telling than any mirror; when we attend a place of worship—be it temple, band hall, or dance studio—our community embraces and sees us. This cycle of devotional practice/spiritual rewards can lead us to a truly loving, joyful, and enlightened place. Practice both emboldens and uplifts us. The following exercise lets you explore that.
Exercise: Staying Connected to Devoted Practices: The Heartfelt Gift to Yourself
When we understand how and why we do something, it is easier to maintain and create similar habits and behaviors. This exercise inspires your confidence and builds heartfelt devotion.
Step 1: Identify a nourishing habit you have. This could be nightly walks, morning meditation, a gratitude journal … anything that you perform on a regular basis that makes you feel calm or healthy.
Step 2: Acknowledge how you were able to form that habit. Did you just start up one day and stick with it continually or was it a process? If it was a process, how did you keep it up when you were reluctant or busy?
Step 3: When you didn’t want to but performed the habit anyway, why did you? How did it feel after you pushed through and made it happen? Call upon your creative resources to express that feeling: move, write, whistle, etc.
A devoted practice feeds us twice: once through the healthy practice itself and a second time through the esteem of knowing we can stick to something and deserve to care for ourselves. As a creative person on a heart-centered path, do your best to hold the importance of self-love and self-nurturance in mind. These comforting, healthful habits become routines that feed but are not held prisoner by intense emotions. Such routines are a bridge to the creative Self. The next exercise can help you move beyond fear so that you may continue to take such actions.
Exercise: Yoga Posture Practice: I’m No Cowardly Lion: Using Lion Pose to Transform Fears
The creative path requires strength. Although emotionally driven people are accused of being too sensitive, it actually takes great courage to feel emotions and live a devotional life. Use this exercise to identify and stay connected to your lionheartedness.
Step 1: Identify an emotion or a situation that scares you. (Remember, courage doesn’t mean not afraid. If we weren’t afraid, we wouldn’t need the courage.)
Step 2: Shape your body into a representation of that fear. This could be standing, seated, or lying down, in motion or still. There is no right or wrong; simply trust your body to make a shape. Notice how this shape affects your musculature, breath, thoughts, and emotions. How creative do you feel right now? Where are your senses of freedom, trust, and joy? While you hold this shape, how is the feeling/situation you’re afraid of behaving or moving around your body (inside or outside)?
Step 3: Imagine putting that feeling/situation in a cage in front of you. This is a magical cage that holds it until you say “Release.” Examine what is in the cage. Does it have a shape, color, movement pattern, face, or voice? What, if anything, does it want from or for you? Draw it, paint it, or collage a representation of its energy.
Step 4: Have a sip of water. Sit on your heels, cross-legged, or on a chair with feet on the floor. Keep your back straight and your fingers splayed over your knees, palms down. Take a deep breath in, widen your fierce eyes, open your mouth fully, stick your tongue toward your chin, and roar! Press the air right from the belly with the throat open and relaxed so it does not strain. Your roar may be silent, “Ahhh,” “RAAAAAAR,” or whatever else feels natural. (I know, it feels weird. Keep practicing—it’ll get natural. I promise.) This is Simhasana, Lion’s Pose.
Step 5: Stand up with legs hip-width apart, feet flat on the floor, knees slightly bent. Spread your palms on your knees or thighs and repeat the entire pose. Be sure to consciously direct your roar at the thing in the cage and do not strain your vocal apparatus. Allow the roar to be open and expressive, supported by the diaphragm.
Step 6: Re-examine what is in the cage. How does it move or hold its “body”? If it has eyes, look into them. What does it seem to want from or for you? On a fresh page, draw, paint, or collage its energy.
Step 7: Tell the feeling/situation what you want it to know. Do your best to affirm yourself via this exchange. Notice the response from the creature in the cage. Draw, paint, collage, or write your self-affirming message and post in a place you will see it often.
Step 8 (optional): If your relationship with the caged creature is transformed, it may now be a close ally. Did it teach you about yourself and your capacity for courage? Can you come to a healthy agreement with it? If so, set it free. In this way, you are freeing an aspect of your creative Self, as well.
Sometimes our emotions are so strong they spin a believable story. This exercise gave you the chance to perceive and create a different point of view. It takes courage to move beyond our intense emotions and fears.
The Bhakti Path harnesses the power of our emotions to cultivate a life of freedom, imagination, devotion, and joy. Although it sometimes takes courage to face what triggers our feelings, all of it deserves expression and may be the source of beautiful creations. The next chapter takes you from the realm of feelings into an intellectual approach as you create from a sense of wisdom on the Jnana Path.