This seems to be the only place where I can slow down, because it’s the only place I’ve allowed myself to do so.

When my partner and I first broke up, I felt the need to run up and down and be busy and exhaust myself completely. By the time I got home, I’d only have to close my eyes to stop feeling and sleep and forget how much I missed him.

Countless sessions in the yoga studio taught me that I need to confront myself in order to heal.

By bringing myself to the mat every day, I simultaneously tortured and mended myself as heart openers exposed my broken heart to my body.

It didn’t matter which class I took, but it was hot power yoga that pushed me the most. Flowing through positions in a 103-degree room as I did sun salutation after sun salutation after downward dog and handstand seemed like a complementary way to deal with a heartache that hurt just as much as my muscles. Working on sequences in a room full of people who were stronger than me and took the spirituality of yoga just as seriously was good for me. I needed them around me as a support group as we were instructed to do what hurts the most: backbends.

Those are the heart openers.

Feeling awful emotionally made me want to feel amazing physically, so I changed my diet and committed myself to practicing yoga at least five times a week. Slowly I started to feel better, but it wasn’t because I was healthier. Rather, yoga is an extreme emotional workout.

I learned that through hip flexors I could release blocked emotions, and that heart openers are like taking a punch to the soul that somehow makes you feel a little better afterward. I once burst into tears after a particularly hard class, as I felt as if I’d been ripped apart by a thousand hungry wolves.

My teacher comforted me, explaining that yoga can do that when you bottle up feelings and build up tensions, but that ultimately the temporary pain would lift great weights off my chest.

The reality of it hurt so much that I wasn’t able to talk about it and I couldn’t say his name. I couldn’t listen to our songs and I couldn’t read the postcards that he sent me from our travels to Iceland and Rio. I couldn’t watch James Bond movies anymore, and I avoided drinking Nordic beers. When people fall in love they sometimes say that they found their other half, but he and I always said that we were the same half, so when I lost him I felt like I lost myself.

I felt him near when I woke up, near on my way to work, near when I was grabbing drinks with friends, and near when nobody else would pick up the phone. We had plans of owning dogs and building a lake house and having a bunch of barefoot children who would run along the beach as their father and I tried to surf (although we’re both terrible at surfing, we love the idea of being surfers).

Every extra dollar I made went toward a ticket to see him so that I could feel his warmth and bury my face into the corner of his neck where I fit perfectly. But when we broke up, the plans were shattered and the image of our future burned to ashes, leaving me unable to breathe.

I was able to feel my breath at yoga.

For a few months following the breakup, I faced the separation on the mat because it accepted my tears and sweat.

But my teacher was right. With each practice I completed I felt lighter as I left behind rock-heavy emotions. Although my lips were sealed and I avoided questions and conversations that circled back to him, I was able to push through sequences that hurt and burned, because my heart was mending with every flow when nothing else was working.

The people in the studio became my rock, even though they didn’t know my name. The girl with the boob job and the cliché Om tattoo was the most centered soul in the room, the old woman with leathery brown skin was stronger than us all and liked to prove it by holding long handstands, and the man who never wore a shirt liked to prove his lung capacity by chanting louder than everyone else.

Even though we never spoke a word to each other, there was a silent acknowledgment as we bowed our heads and smiled at the beginning and end of every class. We moved together, breathed together, chanted together and felt the poses together. When we said Namaste at the end of class I knew that their souls were acknowledging mine—that even without words we were understanding each other’s suffering and hardships.

At the beginning of class, we are encouraged to set an intention for the day’s practice, and every day I said that I wanted to let go of him and the feelings that came along with him. But I knew deep down that that was a lie. I didn’t want to let go—not at all. I wanted to feel him near again, because for the first time I felt him far away.

With every class I took, I pushed myself further and further, even if every muscle in my body burned. One more push up, one more second with my leg extended, one more kick-up into forearm stand, one more breath in plank. My face would tighten and my body shook and I’d think to myself “I can’t do this, I can’t,” but I made damn sure that I did anyway. Even though heart openers were the scariest moment of my day, I always made sure to take the deepest backbends I could. My shoulders reached back, my ribs spread apart, leaving me exposed.

In these positions, I can’t hide from the violent gush of emotions I’ve been working so hard to ignore. It’s nauseating; it makes me cringe, and my throat feels tight, but I do it anyway.

Ever since we broke up, the mat has been the ultimate Band-Aid for the soul. “We come to yoga to repair the layers of disconnect,” my teacher says as we lay in Savasana after a particularly difficult practice, and I feel my chest contract and my face tighten as hot tears begin to run down my hot cheeks. But once the lights come back on and it’s time to leave the studio, I feel like I’ve left chains behind on the mat.

The truth is that I love watching James Bond movies and I love drinking Nordic beers. I’ve taken the postcards he sent me from Iceland and Rio out from hiding and have placed them back on the cardboard above my bed, because discovering those places was an incredible experience for me. I’m able to say his name in conversation, and even though I still want a lake house, barefoot babies and a bunch of dogs, I no longer feel the need to have it all with him.

I still have feelings for him, and I still have off days where all I want to do is hold my best friend and go back to pretending that one day we’ll be together, but after a couple of months I’ve seen myself transform on the mat.

Yoga teaches me to let go every day, and it feels like coming up for a gulp of air after being underwater for a bit too long.

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Author: Maria Pia Velasco

Image: Pixabay

Apprentice Editor: Clifford Henry; Editor: Toby Israel

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