EmoYoga
in Vancouver
Depth of Connection
through Building Strength, Flexibility and Balance
of the Emotional Body.
EmoYoga focuses on developing a healthy and balanced emotional body through focusing on three major elements:
Flexibility
Developing emotional flexibility means developing the ability to experience a wide range of emotions. Most people today are stuck in two to five major emotional patterns having no or limited access to the rest of the rich emotional spectrum.
Balance
Emotional balance comes when we are experiencing an emotion without drowning in it. Balance is broken when certain emotions are blocked in the body and lie outside of awareness or when an emotional experience is overwhelming, chronic or out of control.
Strength
Through developing balance and flexibility we are growing our emotional strength - the ability to stay present with a wide range of life situations (both positive and negative) without being shaken or withdrawing emotionally. Emotional presence is what makes authentic human contact possible, which is one of the most rewarding life experiences we can have.
Why EmoYoga?
Capacity to experience healthy balanced emotions is essential to having a deep and rewarding human experience. Just like the joy of physical activities is not possible without a healthy physical body, satisfying human relationships are not possible without a healthy and balanced emotional body.
What is Emotional Balance?
Emotional balance is the ability to experience a wide range of emotions while staying in contact with reality, other people and one's own needs. The intensity of balanced emotions is equal to the situations which cause them.
How is Emotional Balance Broken?
Emotions go out of balance when they are not acknowledged or expressed timely in the situations that cause them. There are multiple reasons for why this happens. In the western society run by the values of money, career, competition and status most people learn to wear a socially accepted mask, where the emotions are suppressed and disconnected from. As children many of us have learned that our emotional expressions are not OK and that we have to play a role to be accepted and loved. As a result, only the image we create gets accepted while our true self remains deeply lonely and isolated causing us significant soul pain. In addition, previous abuse or traumatic experiences could leave us believing that emotional expression is not safe or that we cannot handle the overwhelming emotion.
Two Extremes of Emotional Imbalance
Unacknowledged and unexpressed emotions could take two different roots:
On one side there is emotional disconnection or blocking the emotion from awareness. Blocked emotions often get "stuck" in the body in the form of muscle tension, physical symptoms and disease. These blocks are reinforced by self-defeating thought patterns which make the expression of the emotion dangerous or impossible.
On the other side there is drama or addiction to chronic emotions. Chronic emotions are rigidly experienced in most situations and they are often exaggerated. In this situation we often find ourselves stuck in a pattern of re-creating thoughts and life situations to reinforce the chronic emotion.
Effect on Relationships and Quality of Life
If a large part of your emotional body is in pain or disconnected, the authentic contact with others becomes very difficult. Nobody tries running with a broken leg or without a leg, however, people try to connect to each other with a broken heart, unforgiven disappointments, unexpressed rage or while being emotionally disconnected. Such attempts end up in a vicious circle of more disappointments. As this becomes unbearable, many of us seek escape in distraction by excessive work, alcohol, drugs, sex, new exciting experiences, etc. However the vague feeling that something is missing out of life remains and reminds us of the places where we have emotionally betrayed and abandoned ourselves.
Current Solutions
How has this problem been addressed? The honest answer is that the emotional realm is one of the most neglected in the today's society. General medicine, fitness and nutrition address the needs of the physical body. As of recently, the health of the mental body has been addressed by life-coaching and mindfulness techniques. Meditation and spiritual practices serve to bring the spiritual body into balance. However, there is no practice that helps to develop and maintain a healthy emotional body. We deal with it the best way we can. A small portion of the population has been born in relatively emotionally healthy families which enabled them to create significant close connections with friends and partners. Artists find emotional outlets in different artistic channels having their feelings validated by the audience. Yoga and martial art practitioners find ways to balance their emotional world through connecting to deeper levels of the physical bodies. Some people meet their emotional selves only in crisis situations when the defense patterns break down under the pressure of the accumulated emotional pain. This takes them to the therapist’s office where they are accompanied by the shame of “something being wrong with me”. This is an equivalent of going to the doctor’s office with the stomach cancer after years and years of starvation and self-poisoning. The sad truth is, however, that the majority of people is not aware of the issue and lives disconnected and unfulfilled lives believing that this is all that is to it. So, why not learn to eat healthy emotional food and take a good care of our emotional needs NOW as the only thing that is “wrong” with us is our human ability to feel?
With EmoYoga you will start moving towards connection and authenticity. To help restore emotional balance EmoYoga creates space where all authentic expressions are welcomed. Safe space to be heard and accepted emotionally and realization that all emotions are OK will help unblocking disconnected emotions. To balance overdramatized emotions we will use connection to the body, the present moment and unsatisfied needs and create new experiences of need satisfaction.
Emotional
Disconnection
Drama
Where and How?
EmoYoga is practiced in contact with other human beings - in dyads, triads and small groups. Special exercises and group dynamics serve to bring attention to the areas of either emotional disconnection or chronic emotions. The tools for overcoming emotional disconnection include space to be heard and accepted, realization that all emotions are OK and establishing emotion-body connection. The tools for overcoming chronic emotions include reconnection to the present moment, reconnecting to the opposite experience or unsatisfied needs and creating a new positive experience.
Principles
Confidentiality What happens in the EmoYoga space stays there. All participants agree to full confidentiality.Authenticity Striving to express true feelings and needs. Agreement that all emotions are OK and they have a reason.Respect Intention to do one's best to emotionally hear and accept oneself and others.Responsibility Responsibility for and sensitivity to one's boundaries and limits.Immediacy Focus on what is real here and now or in the present life situation.Gradual change Moving one step at a time to achieve deep and consistent change.
Confidentiality
What happens in the EmoYoga space stays there. All participants agree to full confidentiality.
Authenticity
Striving to express true feelings and needs. Agreement that all emotions are OK and they have a reason.
Respect
Intention to do one's best to emotionally hear and accept oneself and others.
Responsibility
Responsibility for and sensitivity to one's boundaries and limits.
Immediacy
Focus on what is real here and now or in the present life situation.
Gradual change
Moving one step at a time to achieve deep and consistent change.
Love
Peace
Improved family relationships
Freedom to do what you love
The joy of Intimacy
Elena
To develop EmoYoga Elena combined her experience with yoga, Gestalt therapy, transformational psychology and meditation. She has been walking the path of emotional transformation for over five years and she draws her wisdom from her personal experience. Through her persistence on the journey of soul-recovery and her courage to go to challenging emotional places she has developed a profound capacity to stay authentic, connected and to hold space for others' authentic expression.
Team 2 - want to join the team?
:-)
Team 3
Contact us at:Tel: 778 319 0860Email: androlena_yahoo.com
Contact us at:
Tel: 778 319 0860
Email: androlena_yahoo.com
