Support for Heart Opening
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Relationship Between Support and Openness
Recall a time when you let yourself be vulnerable—when your heart opened—and ended up bruised. Someone took advantage of your generosity or in some way abused your tenderness. The sinking sensation you felt then may be poignant even now. A sinking sensation suggests that at that time you lacked foundation for your feelings.
Later on, and with luck, you developed ways to support your openness. Although hardening your heart was an option, you chose instead to back it up with solid friendships, nourish it with creative endeavors, and strengthen it with maturing views of reality.
Shoulder Girdle Support for Your Heart
Our physical hearts, too, need support. The video below sheds light on what I mean. Look at my demonstration (just past the halfway mark) of the narrowing of the back when the chest is lifted by using the rhomboid muscles to pull the scapulas together. Contrast that to the broader back achieved by supporting the shoulder girdle with serratus anterior, lower trapezius and latissimus dorsi. Observe how this broad band of activity across the mid-back creates space under the outside edges of the collar bones (the corocoid corners). Notice also that the same band of good tension provides backing for your heart as well as stabilizing the shoulders for graceful and efficient movements of the arms.
Arm Support for the Heart
The arm buds of a human fetus develop from the same embryological tissue as the heart. From our very inceptions, our arms are reaching out from our hearts.
To fulfill our hearts’ intentions our arms must be well supported. Your “corocoid corner” awareness (see video above) can help with this. When you have the supportive band of “serratus and company” across your mid-back and spacious corocoid corners, your humeral heads will rest back into the shoulder socket when you raise your arms. This secures your arms’ connection into your shoulder blades. Your arms securely and openly express your heart’s intent when they are connected to your spine via the scapulae.
If, however, you thrust your heart forward by retracting the shoulder blades, that only appears to widen the corocoid area. When the scapula retracts like that, the humeral head is forced forward in the shoulder socket. With your shoulder joint in this position your arm movements can’t be fully supported by the shoulders and spine. Further, the upper back tension of this posture restricts the adaptability of the thoracic cage and limits the motion of the heart and lungs within.
In another shoulder pattern, seen mostly in women, the serratus anterior draws the scapulas forward without the balancing tension of the latissimus dorsi. Note that while the heart area appears open, the corocoid corners are withdrawn. This pattern indicates poor arm support for the heart. Although alluring, it’s not really a generous posture. Further, in this pattern the arms become passive, unable to make assertive gestures because they lack support. This posture seems to me to embody western culture’s confusion about women’s roles.
Breath Support for the Heart
Notice in the image of heart and lungs above that the lungs seem to wrap around the heart. Your lungs actually do swell to embrace and massage the heart with each respiration. Take a moment now to feel or imagine that process. (Recall that imagined sensation is as pertinent to your brain re-mapping process as “real” sensation).
Tadasana: Mountain Pose
Sit upright in your pelvis, weight slightly forward of your sit bones. Inhale through your nose, letting your ribs open like venetian blinds. During exhalation, bring your awareness to the weight of your body—feel the pressure of your thighs on the chair, your feet on the ground. Imagine your lungs embracing your heart with every breath as you continue this meditation.
Mountain Pose
Notice the lifted front chest and pinched together back of the woman standing in mountain pose. The tension in her spine inhibits normal rotation (the venetian blind-like motion) of her ribs. But that rotational motion of the thoracic cage is necessary for the motility of the lungs to caress the heart with respiration.
Such lifted posture may be touted as “heart opening”, but without the support of breath, it’s an unresponsive posture. The rigid clenching of the shoulders, spine and legs renders the body immobile. It is a meme of heart opening rather than the real thing.
Your own experience tells you that opening—and resilience—can be sustained only in the presence of support. Balancing your alignment with gravity with awareness of normal joint function affords strength without effort, openness without defense, support without closure. Within your mountain is a beating, breathing heart.
© 2022 Mary Bond