Learning how to let down your guards and defense mechanisms so that you can be vulnerable enough to love and receive love is often one of the most profound experiences students have while participating in Finding The One (my online group coaching program).
This week, I’m interviewing Amy Cronise-Mead, the co-founder of YOGADHARMA, and inviting her to share her wisdom on how to use yoga to open your heart and tap into its tenderness so that you can experience the amazing strength and confidence that comes from releasing yourself from past anguish.
Amy is known for her commitment “to teaching a yoga that cultivates kindness, wisdom, and ultimate happiness.” She and her husband are also co-founders of the Sukha Gomukha Fund, dedicated to helping dairy cows live out their natural lives.
Bari: The process of allowing yourself to open your heart and tap into it tenderness is a really important part of the Meet to Marry™ method. Can you tell us about the heart from your perspective as a yogini?
Amy: I love that that’s your focus, because you’re really asking people to step into their potential. Of course when we are evolving and stepping into our own potential, we meet others who are brave enough to do the same.
In essence that evolution is the whole point of yoga. In the West, so often we see it as a ‘good workout,’ or some relaxing stretching. It is both of those things, but what the word ‘yoga’ means is ‘union.’ It’s a practice that helps us to be more fully alive in our bodies, more conscious of our thoughts (the good, the bad, and the ugly!) and more available with our hearts. The practice is an opportunity to integrate, which is just a fancy way to say that we can become more fully ourselves! That, of course, includes our hearts, and the potential that we each have, for love, is greater than we know.
Bari: Sometimes we’re not really aware that our heart is closed or hardened by past experiences. Are there any physical signs that indicate our heart is starting to become sealed off or toughened?
Amy: Physically, it’s all relative. When we look in the mirror and notice our shoulders are rounding forward protectively around our heart compared to other people, well, there are a myriad of factors that can contribute to that. But if you look in the mirror and notice these changes relative to YOU, then that’s a sign that there’s something worth investigating.
We can also see the signs in our actions. We can start to notice – Do we look people in the eyes? Do we really listen? Do we stay present and feeling when we interact with each other? When the heart is armored, there is a certain numbness, that can actually feel quite comfortable, but that numbness denies us the potential we have as fully present feeling beings.
