Yin Yoga Poses for the Liver/Gall Bladder Meridians: How Yoga Can Help with Anger and Kindness
In honour of this year’s Lunar New Year, I am creating a special series to deep dive into yin yoga. In this content series, you will learn about the history and definition of yin yoga, the benefits of working with our meridians, and practice the types of yoga asanas that we can do to stimulate them.
If you like practicing yin yoga with me, you can join my online yoga club to practice with me live each week. I’m currently celebrating my first milestone by adding a NEW benefit for my members - a monthly tarot meditation.
The Liver/Gall Bladder Meridians
The function of the Liver is to hold the soul (shen) that survives after death. Shen is a refined and subtle form of chi, associated with consciousness and associated with creativity. When our shen is calm, the Liver is functioning well and Liver chi is important for vitality of all parts of the body. When our Liver chi is weak, we can have too much anger or irritation or be unable to express anger at all. The Gall Bladder is the corresponding yang organ for the Liver. When the Gall Bladder is strong, we are decisive and bold.
All organ pairs have an associated emotion and they are anger and kindness.
It’s common to associate anger with men, but although it’s not often talked about, women also have anger and rage problems. I’m one of them. When I practice yoga for anger management, I am able to remove myself from a reactive state in order to observe the roots and triggers of my anger, motivated to change, and see yoga (asana, breathework, meditation, sleep, stress reduction) as a habit that I can do to reduce anger arousal in my life.
Our yoga practice is ultimately leading us to lead a more compassionate life, so our practice means nothing if it is not about liberation for all.
Yoga Sutras 1.33 says, “By cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous and disregard toward the wicked, the mind-stuff retains its undisturbed calmness.”
Swami Satchidananda says this is one sutra that will be helpful to keeping a peaceful mind in daily life and that this sutra is for him a guiding light to keep his mind serene always.
Friendliness, compassion, delight and disregard are four keys to unlock how you understand happy people, unhappy people, the virtuous and the wicked so that you can keep a peaceful mind.
When we have kindness and less judgement to ourselves, we have more kindness and less judgement for others. Our society is focused on the myth of the rugged individual, but we need community. Be happy for the happiness of people. Have compassion for the suffering of the unhappy. Be inspired by the virtuous and indifferent to the wicked.
A yin yoga practice can specifically address an emotional issue by targeting the appropriate Organ pair. If you want to work with anger or kindness, work with the Liver and Gall Bladder meridian.
Liver/Gall Bladder is home to anger and kindness, the element of wood, and the season of spring.
Sequence
Hip openers and twists can stimulate the live and gall bladder meridians and enhance the flow of energy along these lines. To activate these meridians, we work on backbends first.
Supported Bridge
Swan
Shoelace
Bananasana
Resources
Bernie Clark, The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga
Sri Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali