To love means to open ourselves to the negative as well as the positive – to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as joy, fulfillment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible before. – Rollo May
The chest, the heart’s center, the center for exchanging energy and for giving and receiving love. I can think of no other anatomical part of the body that carries with it so many non-anatomical and emotional associations, including love, compassion, heartbreak, warmth, kindness, grief, connection, relationship, sadness, forgiveness, shame, confidence, empowerment, anger, strength. I could go on and on with the feelings commonly associated with this emotionally expressive part of the body…
As we study the chest this month, our tagline is sensing expansion and contraction. How appropriate! All emotion moves through this incredible energy center in two types of waves: expansion or contraction. Love expands my chest. Shame contracts it. Forgiveness expands it. Heartbreak contracts it. The ebb and flow of emotion, as it turns out, is not without a deeply influential effect on our bodies.
When I feel confident, self-assured, and in a place of great self-love, I sense strength, flexibility, and openness in my chest. Naturally, these are expansive sensations that I love to sense. And yet, I’ve discovered there is great beauty and lovely lessons to be learned in being comfortable with sensing contraction. My ability to be vulnerable and to allow myself to draw inward is of equal importance and validity to expanding outward.
When I sense and allow the natural contraction of my chest, I feel as though I’m giving myself permission to be fully human. It’s ok to feel exhausted. It’s ok to feel sad. It’s ok to feel introverted and need to draw inward towards myself to recharge. Through the chest, I’ve learned that health (both physical and emotional) is found via the integration of opposites – through the ability to expand and contract and knowing when is the best time to do either.
In Nia, we say that the pelvis, chest, and head house the seven primary energy centers of the body, also known as chakras. My favorite writer on this subject, PhD psychologist Anodea Judith, describes chakras as, “a center of activity that receives, assimilates, and expresses life force energy.” Chakras three and four are both situated in the bodyweight of the chest. Chakra three is all about power, autonomy, will, proactivity, and self-esteem. Chakra four is about love, relationship, balance, devotion, and intimacy.
When we work with expanding and contracting the chest (as we do with countless Nia movements), we activate these energy centers, and, in turn deeply stimulate our abdominal muscles, intercostal muscles, rib cage, spine, internal organs, and breathing. In fact, the breath itself is our most essential tool to working with expanding and contracting the chest, as our inhale and exhale do exactly this.
When you breathe, allow your breath to fill your entire chest cavity, imagining the breath filling the base of your lungs first, then expanding upwards to fill the entire chest. Inhale and sense your heart center open with flexibility, supported from behind by the strength of your upper back muscles. Exhale and allow your spine to lengthen upwards, resting into the spaciousness of your thoracic spine and chest cavity. Use the tips below to continue to breathe life into the bodyweight of your chest and to sense the dynamic interplay between expansion and contraction.
With a new year upon us, the time to focus on the chest could not be more ideal. Open, inhale, and expand into the New Year as you exhale to release what has come before, letting your heart’s center guide you into a magical year of health and wellbeing!
Tips
- Practice deep, diaphramatic breathing techniques. Visualize your belly ascending with breath as you inhale through the nose, then descending as you exhale through the mouth. Sense your body fill with energy on the inhale, then releasing energy on the exhale.
- Attend a class or workshop focused on pranayama (yogic breathwork).
- Practice sounding the vowels A, E, I, O, and U and sense the reverberation of sound through your chest.
- Lay over a yoga bolster length-wise. Allow your hips to rest on the floor, your arms and legs open wide, and your chest and spine elevated and cascading over the bolster. Sense expansion through your chest.
- Practice the Nia moves Chest Isolations, Shimmy, Spinal Undulations, and Spinal Roll.
