Experience heartbreak to wholeness nourish your heart and lungs, Season 1, Episode 5 of Shapeshift: Exploring Movement & Emotions, and discover how to release the physical weight of grief. In this 45-minute hatha yoga for emotional wellness session, instructor Uma Ashleigh Sergeant guides you through a gentle heart chakra opening designed to restore balance to your upper body. When we experience deep sadness or loss, our posture naturally collapses inward as a protective mechanism. This physical shielding restricts our breathing, tightens the shoulders, and locks tension deep into our chest cavity. This heart opening yoga practice focuses on broadening the collarbones, opening the inner arms, and expanding the lungs to clear these deep-seated physical and emotional blocks.
By engaging in somatic movement for grief, you can begin to gently unwind the protective armor around your chest and invite a sense of spaciousness back into your life. This specialized yoga to nourish heart and lungs combines intentional breathwork for lung health with emotional release yoga poses to stimulate blood flow and restore a sense of tenderness. Uma Ashleigh Sergeant's compassionate guidance ensures that you can move at your own pace, honoring whatever emotions arise during the practice. Whether you are navigating a recent loss, processing life transitions, or carrying long-held emotional tension, this supportive practice offers a safe, non-judgmental space to process your feelings through mindful, embodied movement. Through these deliberate physical shapes, we invite the spiritual heart center to soften, allowing feelings of devotion and wholeness to naturally emerge.
To support your practice, please gather a bolster, a blanket, a strap, and two blocks before beginning. These props will help you find optimal alignment and comfort, allowing your body to fully surrender into each posture. Step onto your mat, connect with your breath, and allow yourself to be held in this compassionate space. Begin your exploration today on Gaia.
