Seeing with the Eyes of the Heart

The moment had come—the most nerve-wracking part of any teacher training I’ve led: the first time each trainee guides the whole group through a pose. But what I witnessed that day was less about teaching yoga and more about living it.

When I announced the exercise last weekend, I could feel the familiar wave of anxiety ripple around the room. Yet as each person summoned their courage and took their place at the front, something powerful unfolded.

One trainee, teaching in her second language, did a beautiful job. Another, a longtime college teacher, guided us into Pārśvottānāsana with the confident poise of her years in the classroom. A third spoke with such attentive presence that you could feel her genuine care for each of us. One by one, they rose to the challenge—each stepping into the seat of the teacher in their distinctive way.

After each turn, we offered reflections—naming the natural qualities that had shone through their presence. And while everyone did well with the assignment, what moved me most was the generosity and encouragement they showered upon one another—the way they genuinely saw and celebrated each person's strengths.

Their responses were a concrete expression of a concept I’d been exploring in class just days earlier: “the eyes of the heart.”

In Iyengar Yoga, “the eyes of the heart” refers to the edges of the thoracic diaphragm—the hollow space just below the outer collarbones. This part of the chest often tightens with tension or stress. When we bring awareness to it and soften this area, the chest expands. Quite literally, we create more space to breathe.

And perhaps that physical opening creates the conditions for something deeper to unfold. When we release the armoring around the heart, when we soften the chest and breathe into that space, we may also be cultivating the capacity to see differently—not just with our physical eyes, but with a more subtle kind of vision.

So what might it mean to see with the eyes of the heart?

Perhaps it means perceiving what the eyes alone cannot—the courage beneath someone’s nervousness, the strength within their vulnerability, the light that shines through when they show up authentically. Maybe it means choosing to accept ourselves as we are, and practicing seeing the goodness in ourselves and others, even when it feels easier to focus on flaws and shortcomings.

The kindness my trainees showed one another was this vision in action. They saw through the lens of compassion, acting from a sense of solidarity rather than judgment or comparison.

This is where our physical practice and the wisdom teachings of yoga meet. When we open the chest in āsana, we create the physical conditions for a shift in perspective. But the real transformation happens when that open-heartedness extends beyond the mat—when we meet life’s challenges with the same compassion and generosity of spirit.

As you move through your practice this week, notice when you find yourself seeing with the eyes of the heart—and when that vision closes. Because here’s what I’ve learned: the chest that opens in Cobra Pose is the same chest that can hold space for someone’s pain without needing to fix it. The breath that deepens in your vinyasa is the same breath that helps you pause before criticism.

This is how the practice seeps into life—not all at once, but one gentle, conscious opening at a time.

Moments like these are a reminder that yoga’s deepest teachings are learned not only in the precision of a pose, but in the tenderness of how we see and meet one another.