Why does yoga make me feel angry?

I am fairly new to the practice (about 3-4 months) and I have noticed that sometimes after a session or meditation I feel emotions like anger or frustration. Not with the practice, I very much enjoy the poses and movements and do not find them difficult or frustrating, but it seems like for no reason I sometimes get this anger inside afterwards. I assumed that it would make me feel more at peace and calm and have a better outlook with the universe. But I did some research and it seems like it is common to feel angry sometimes because you’re trying to release anger from your mind/body and yoga helps expend the negative emotions(?)

I have also recently been extremely more sensitive than usual to hearing about any kind of animal cruelty and find it hard to focus on the bliss in the universe when these deplorable people are in the world torturing/starving/hurting animals.

Has anyone had experience with anger or similar when beginning yoga?
Any input would be helpful.

Negative emotions specially anger post Yoga sessions can be caused by various factors:

  1. Low Hemoglobin. (Test the same)
  2. Low sugar/glucose level. (Test the same)
  3. Some mild infection in the body like urine, etc. (Test the same)
  4. Imbalanced thyroid function. (Test the level of TSH)
  5. Low level of any of calcium, phosphrus and vitamin D. (Test the same)
  6. Low VB12. (Test the same)
  7. Supression of anger.
  8. Unability to accept that frustration is fact of life; and unability to discriminate
    beweeen wants and need, needs and purpose; most importantly lack of priortizing
    time, efforts/energy and attetion to fullfill the same.
    Regardiing your second concerns, it is fact Yoga increases sensitivity. It happens because Yoga is about practice of awareness.
    You can use awareness as tool to understand self and environment including poeple around; make a deliberate effort to chennalize the same by ingrainding value of honesty, integrity, mannersism, compassion. Do not let it make you touchy.
    In relationship, Yoga phylosophy emphasize on three don’s: do not criticize, do not compare and do not complaint.
    Vijay Singh Gusain M.A. (Science of Living, Preksha Meditation & Yoga) & M.A. (Psy.

Yoga doesn’t make us feel angry.

All human beings (that I’ve encountered) have latent emotions, stuff that lies under the veneer or masks that are so common in so-called normal society. These latent emotions can be released by the practice of yoga when the student is ready (consciously or otherwise).

Ergo if some feelings have come up for processing that is a wonderful thing. Enjoy exploring and discovering them so that you can let them move along and get to other things. It’s perfectly fine.

It is only pop culture that fosters the belief that yoga is supposed to make the student blissed-out, peaceful, calm, et al. It’s pure and utter nonsense. Just as the concept that “yoga makes you a better person” is completely false. Instead yoga allows the student to unearth their nature, find out who they are and why they are hear, then hopefully pursue that.

And I agree with my cohort above on the topic of sensitivity. A profound practice of more than asana absolutely enhances sensitivities in the student.

Yoga is a process of self-realization. Practice is designed to deal with mind and the body, to meet the soul. But, one forgets that this brings about change which is not liked by the establshment. The cells rebel. Body looks for a new status quo and emotions are unsettled in the hornet’s nest. Anger is rare, but inventing convincing excuses why one must skip a yoga practice for a day is common.

Yoga is no bed of roses. It is a journey into the unknown, mind dissecting the mind, trials and errors, innumerable set-backs, a fragile domain and alien terrain. Only a fiery aspiration sees one through.

Then why do it? Yoga the spiritual path is for those who have a compelling desire for the truth and who in that quest stay put. Then, one gets a glimpse of the inner soul and yoga becomes life. No effort is needed thereafter.

I can go from zero to ANGER very quickly in a yoga asana class. I also find myself in tears frequently - not only in or after an asana class but while doing yoga nidra or savasana at home.

Sometimes I think I should probably spend time examining the WHY of these emotions but most of the time I can’t be bothered and just let them flow.

i as well am experiencing emotions being released through my practice. when i first started a more serious practice last year, i was pretty much in tears every night after class for maybe a full week - eventually it subsided. several months later, i began to feel extreme annoyance - everything became really annoying to me!! it was almost unbearable, but that also subsided. lately i have started feeling extreme anger and rage… sometimes directed at people from my past, sometimes at the person in class in front of me, and sometimes just anger unnattached to anything/anyone.

i recently started doing pranayama, and it seems to have taken things up a notch, as today i think i cycled through 5-6 different extreme moods. it was so exhausting, especially as i was at work and so could not show any of these emotions, or take a minute to weep to release.

while i was holding back tears at one point during the day and working away, i realized something - that despite the fact that at that moment i was feeling extreme sadness, i was still just going about my business… and it was an interesting realization! i could just feel my feeling, and let it do its thing, while i did my thing. it wasnt holding me back or colouring my actions. i felt like i learnt a great thing today in that experience.

i am naturally a very sensitive, emotional and intuitive person, and i think that is why i’ve been having such an extreme experience with emotions being released through practicing asana, and now pranayama. i have found that when it gets to be too much, i take a few days off to gain my bearings, and then return to practice.

It’s great to hear what emotions other people are experiencing around their practice. I’ve noticed this to some degree, though not as much as Juen8940. I was starting to think I just didn’t like yoga very much! This conversation has rephrased it for me. I think I’ll stick with it…

Yoga is an art and a physical and spiritual discipline. It is a spiritual path to making your mind relax not angry.

Juen8940 -It sounds like you are doing deep work - that’s great in your yoga practice. If you have a skilled and sensitive instructor s/he may be able to offer suggestions as to how you can work through these feelings.

I have not experienced anger in my personal yoga practice, but I was practicing yin yoga practice once and got flooded with deep mourning for my father’s death (along with vivid memories of his funeral). I was 4 when he died and had not really mourned him prior to that day.

I have had yoga students, male and female, who are highly successful people. They are used to being powerful and not vulnerable. It is not uncommon for them to cry or allow themselves to be vulnerable in private yoga sessions. Generally, after we talk about it, they see it as a positive - a chance to release repressed emotions. I see alot of physical and emotional growth in these students.

I am not a psychologist, but based upon my experience I suspect that you have been holding (and maybe even repressing) feelings of anger. In your yoga practice you are getting to a quiet and comfortable enough place in which you feel safe on some level, expressing these feelings.

As you may know anger is often a manifestation of fear. Instead of focusing on ourselves and dealing with inner feelings, we focus our fear on others, which then manifests as anger.

Some people feel that it is not OK to be angry so they hide from it. Maybe you can develop a meditation practice in which you observe your anger and learn how to work with it? You can find some helpful meditations online (and some not so helpful). Also, I will be offering an anger workshop in another month on my website HathaYoga.net (under development)

Namaste - Monique Danielle

juen,

One thing which is essential is to understand that the methods of yoga, like any method, are simply neutral in themselves. Depending on the quality of these hands, you can create medicine out of it, and you can also create poison out of it. Any tool by itself is simply neutral. That is why if you are practicing these methods without a certain mindfulness, rather than being a ladder to more consciousness - it only take you into an even deeper unconsciousness. So this is one thing which is essential to be understood - that the methods of the spiritual sciences carry no quality of their own, it is the quality of the mind which determines the outcome of ones practice. For example, there are yogis who have been involved in the yogic sciences, not as a method towards their enlightenment, but as a means to nourish their own ego by developing occult capabilities of the mind, or there have been yogic who have been practicing for almost their whole lives but have remained in a deep sleep, no inner transformation has happened. Rather than helping to cut through the causes of ones sufferings, they have only magnified their sufferings. This is why it is very important to realize that it is the state of consciousness which is flowing beneath your practice which is going to determine the outcome of your practice.

If certain emotions and mental states like anger and frustration are happening as a result of your practice, one possibility is that the practice is unleashing certain repressed contents of the unconscious. Rather than trying to escape from such states, learn how to remain a witness in the present moment, without clinging to whatever may be happening in your experience, neither liking nor disliking, without attraction or aversion. If you want yoga to become a process of inner transformation, then you should know that there is nothing in life which is not yoga, because any situation if you approach it consciously, with awareness, can be turned into a process of growth and expansion. That is the whole skillful means of yoga - to come to know yourself, through and through, from the very source of your existence to its expression as a mind and body. But that is usually not our approach - we want to move towards what we like and avoid what we dislike, gravitate towards the pleasant and escape from the unpleasant - not realizing that what is pleasant may not necessarily be helpful for your well being, and what is unpleasant can be a tremendous opportunity to move beyond your limitations. Certain unpleasant mental states, if you approach them with a certain mindfulness, then it is a tremendous opportunity to come to insight into the activity of your own mind. In order to understand the functioning of the mind, we must first learn to see things as they are, one must learn to watch the mind without judgement. And that is the very essence of meditation - to witness the activity of the mind from moment to moment, just like a bright mirror reflecting without prejudice. Do not try to avoid your anger or any particular mental state - but keep the thread of awareness moving from moment to moment like an eye which never sleeps. If you are truly interested in coming to know of a freedom which is immeasurable, you will have to transform your whole life into a process of meditation.

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To the original poster :

What kind of yoga/pranayama you do ? are you doing it correctly ?

any drug/alcohol abuse ?

Hi everyone! I am new to the forum. This forum has been of great help to me. Thank you all for your very insightful posts. I am also very new to yoga. It’s been almost 4 months since I started to practice ashtanga vinyasa. From the first class, I walked away from the studio in deep joy and I didn’t have to impose a discipline to myself because it immediate and naturally became part of my practice and going back to the practice was like meeting a childhood friend, the one that we don’t see or talk to for years, but when we meet our connection is still so strong that we feel nothing but love, joy and a great sense of belonging. Well, for the first 2 months, practice was for me a bed of roses! By the middle of the third month things started to change, I still feel enormous joy before, during and shortly after the practice, but a lot of times I have a deep and raw pain in my heart and I am conscious of it all the time, I feel like I want to cry but can?t, and even my sleep pattern has changed a bit. My food preference has changed, I didn’t impose nothing to myself, it just happens. I am becoming very sensitive to a lot of things. 2 days ago I drunk only a bit of alcohol and my heart pain became almost unbearable. I know I don’t have any heart problem since I recently did a complete medical checkup. I feel right now in a very transformative state, physically, mentally and emotionally and it is really overwhelming. I feel in a very fragile place inside myself and it truly scares me. It’s becoming a full time job dealing with all these changes. It is a very solitary path and I am learning to let these things flow, but it is very difficult. When I started practicing I really didn’t create any expectation since I followed the “do your practice and all is coming”, but I didn’t have even a remote idea of how it was going to be. Now that things are coming I feel it is too soon and I am not ready for them. I feel very fragile!!! I knew I was a very sensitive person, but I never thought I would be so deeply affected in such a short period of time. Even though I am accepting and making my path through this state of internal mess I ask to myself many times if I am going insane. What to do when things became like this?
Suhas Tambe what you wrote is so true! I totally agree!

Yoga and meditation, as well as all kinds of spiritual/therapeutic practices can stir up lots of unconscious emotions, both good and bad. When a bad emotion surfaces, don’t try to push it away…it’s very healthy and normal and can benefit you greatly if you let yourself sit with it and work through it. I’ve had this happen to me with yoga and meditation and I’ve talk to my dad about it (hes a psychologist and very spiritual) and he agrees that it is normal and beneficial if you recognize the emotions and try to figure out where they are coming from and work through them.

:slight_smile:

This is really awesome information here and I am so glad to be a part of this site and I hope my friend answer of his question. I have question about yoga is yoga is just for stretching and mind calm. Is this helps to reduce weight or belly fat.

Amanda,

Yoga can DEFINITELY help you lose weight. I have been practicing for almost a year now and my body has literally transformed. Not only have I lost fat, I have also gained strength that I never knew I had. (physical and emotional)

With that said, I have also changed my diet. I drink plenty of clean water and fresh organic fruits and vegetables. Along with other healthy foods.

The Self Health Revolution by J. Michael Zenn really opened my eyes to what I’m putting into my body and the ways that it effects my health. He also mentions the benefits of yoga briefly.

So basically, yoga and what I’ve learned from that book have guided me into a healthy body and mind. :slight_smile:

Good luck!

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Yoga is a form of meditation, and all forms of meditation are supposed to produce inner peace. The purpose is to stop the mind rushing about in an aimless (or even a purposeful) stream of thoughts. Practising meditation regularly will bring this about. It's the same thing as the mind being quiet in sleep; except that in sleep you don't know the mind is quiet, whereas in meditation you know it. Or rather, you come to know it.

intensified experiencing of energies.... outside us and within us. yah.. natural process! our spirits r quite sensitive. parta the trick is to accept how the feelings feel inside... then the mind sorta goes into a restive state a bit more... the guides say cause our energy relaxes :slight_smile:

nice work :pray:t3::slightly_smiling_face: ,,,,,,

HII.no it's not like that yoga made you active energetic fast not makes you feel angree..

I would say that the increases flow of Shakti will follow her own will.... her own tributaries. These movements of energies sometimes at first enliven samskars as part of the clearing, healing, & cleansing (purification) process as the nadis open to balanced & harmonious flow. Jai good friend! now yu show how to relax more, as you picked up on that initially .. I grasp that now as well . Shanti