Awaken

Thank you for joining me for awaken. For today's practice, we will need two blocks. Let's go ahead and get started in child's pose. So come on to your hands and your knees. Let your knees be spread out as wide as you need to.

You're gonna send your hips back to your heels, extend the arms forward, lower the forehead and the chest towards the earth, and then go ahead and give the head a gentle sway side to side. And then we'll begin to find stillness, tuning into the breath. See if you can begin to just witness and watch as the inhale and the exhale move through the body. Take a scan of the body. Noticing where we feel heavy.

Noticing where we feel tight. And then elivening all of those spaces with your breath. So just begin to move the breath, blow into the belly, feeling expansion from the belly. All the way up to the back of the heart and releasing and pushing out the air from the back of the heart out the belly. Just take a few more big full rounds of inhale and of exhale.

And then as you're ready, let's come back up onto our hands and our knees. We're gonna grab our block, place it towards the top of the mat. Coming down into sphinx pose, you're gonna lower onto your forearms, lowering your hips and your legs down. So elbows traditionally under the shoulders. If this feels okay and you're low back keep your elbows here. If for any reason there's a pinch in the low back, you need a little extra space.

Just take your elbows forward a bit more. And then grab your block, and let's place the block on the highest setting. You're gonna lower your forehead onto the block. So we find a lot of space from the sides and the neck to the shoulders. Close your eyes.

And just notice if the toes are squeezing or scrunching, if the glutes are squeezing, and see if we can invite a surrender here. Sense the breath. Just direct the breath right into the belly. As we inhale, the belly pushes into the earth, it's allowing the breath to expand all the way around to the back of the body. Relax and release, any clenching in the draw.

And you're welcome to stay right here. Or if you would like to go a little bit further, you're gonna lift your head up off the block. Bring your hands to the upper corners of the mat. Press into your palms to straighten the arms, finding seal pose. Again, drawing the chin just slightly into the chest.

Keep moving the breath into the belly, soften the forehead. Soften the glutes. And you're welcome to stay right here. If you would like to go further, feel free to bend your knees. Maybe your big toes and your inner heels come together to touch.

We're here for about 10 more breaths. Take a big breath in. Stick out your tongue for lion's breath. One more time, inhale. Lions's breath.

So if your knees are bent, you're gonna bring your legs back down. If you are in the seal pose, you're gonna come back into the sphinx coming onto your forearms. And then we'll move our block off to the side, stack your palms, lower your forehead down to your palms, and swish your hips from side to side. From here, moving into broken wing, we're gonna open our arms out nice and wide. It's a big tee.

From here, tent your right fingertips, keep your left arm open up nice and wide. You're gonna start to turn your gaze to the right, lowering the left ear, the left side of your head on the mat. We're gonna begin to roll over onto our left hip. You might keep your legs stacked or perhaps your right foot might come behind you onto the mat. Right hand can stay right by the chest.

Or if you'd like a little more, you could wrap the right arm around the back, but breathing here into the left side of your chest, into the left shoulder. Just notice and become aware of any gripping in the face, any squeezing in the toes. And practice softening those areas is for a few more breaths here. And then if the right foot is behind you, bring the right leg back on top of the left, so stacking the legs. The right arm is behind you.

Bring the right hand back down. Slowly, roll back onto your belly. Bring both arms back by your sides and swish your hips from side to side. And then from here, open the arms up nice and wide again, you're gonna tent your left fingertips. You're gonna turn the right side of your head on the mat. Maybe resting the right ear on the mat.

And from here, we're gonna begin to roll over onto our right side, stacking our hips, stacking our legs. Perhaps again, that left foot comes behind you. Perhaps the left arm reaches around the back and we breathe here into the right shoulder and into the right side of the chest. Again, noticing and becoming aware of any unnecessary effort in the face, the jaw, the toes. Just direct the breath.

Wherever you need it to go. A few more rounds. And then very carefully, gently bring the left leg back on top of the right. Bring the left hand back down, roll back onto your belly. Arms by the sides, wish the hips from side to side.

Just take a few breaths resting either side of your head on the mat and just pausing in stillness, letting that move through you. And then we'll press ourselves up into a tabletop, hands under the shoulders, knees under the hips, few rounds of cat and cow, so inhaling arching the back, drop the belly heart for Exhale, tuck the tail, curl and round, rolling the navel in towards the spine. Couple more, opening and arching. And exhaling rounding. Last one. Open create that space, awakening the chest.

And rounding. Now from here, I'm gonna tuck our toes. And we're gonna start to sit back towards the heels and see if you can reach back and find the pads of each toe connecting to the mat. The pinky toes are usually the part of us that doesn't wanna come down. You're gonna bring your hands onto your thighs.

We'll lift our chest. And we'll sit back towards the heels. Just as much as we're able to, for thirty seconds here in the foot, toe stretch, awakening the feet, awakens the entire body so our connective tissue from the feet runs all the way up through the scalp. So when we open up our feet, we are opening up the shoulders. We're opening up the chest, the belly, the hips, the neck, all of the things.

Keep breathing. Big full breath in. Sigh it out. One more time. Inhale. Big sigh. Come back onto your hands and your knees.

Tap out your feet. And then take a couple more rounds of cat and cow or hip circles. And then from here, we're gonna come into a seat. So you're gonna sit down with your legs long in front of you. And just shake, shake, shake out your legs for a moment.

So moving into the half saddle. So what I would invite you to do is keep your left leg long. We're gonna start to swing the right leg around to the side so that the right shin is parallel to the outer edge of the mat. And then from here, if it feels okay in your knee, I want you to guide your right heel close to the right glute. You're gonna bring your hands by your sides. Try to guide the right thigh in closer to the left thigh so that the knees and the thighs are close together.

The right sits bone might be lifted. Don't push and force it down. Eventually, it will come down. Lift through the chest. Send your gaze up towards the sky. Find your breath.

Close your eyes. And just drop in and notice the sensation as it moves through that front thigh. Try to resist the urge to jump out of the shape. Right? The desire to move, especially when we are feeling uncomfortable can be quite strong. So see if as that desire rises up inside of us, we can allow the breath to be our focus so that we know that when we want to move the breath can be what is actually moving.

And we're just gonna take five or six more of the biggest fullest in house. And longest sex hails. One more. Link your eyes open. You're gonna start to shift the weight just gently over to the left side.

Carefully swing the right leg around. I want you to pause and just allow that to move through you. And then when you feel ready, just flex and point the feet, finding some movement through the legs. You can circle the feet out. And then we'll take the other side.

So keeping this right leg long, I'm gonna swing the left leg around so that left shin is parallel to the outer edge of the mat. My hands are down by my sides. I'm guiding the left thigh and close to the right thigh. Use the earth lift up and out so that we're lifting the chest up, finding a slight back bend. Brief.

It's observing the difference between the right and the left side. It's quite remarkable. And again, embracing stillness. Just begin to release any unnecessary efforts, squeezing, grabbing, gripping. And allow the shape to awaken the body.

About five more breaths. And then after that fifth breath, just shift gently over into the right side, swing the left leg out Just pause. Let that move through you. And then circle out through the feet, flex and point the feet and the toes. And then from here, we're gonna set up for supported fish. So we're gonna take our two blocks, one block at the high setting near the back of the mat, and then one block in the medium setting near that.

We're gonna lie back. So the shoulder blades, bra line area comes onto this first block, and then the head is resting on the top block. So lying back, making sure that it's right at the shoulder blades, top of the head is supported. Back of the head is supported by the block. On the arms, it's open up nice and wide.

And as you breathe quite deeply here, just feel the shape, awakening your chest, your heart, your lungs. And you have the option to stay right here, which is great. Or we can start to bring the feet together. Allowing the knees just to gently fall open, you mean the arms by the sides. Palms flipped up.

Take five or six more of the deepest fullest inhales all the way up to the chest. Push the air out releasing. Take one more biggest fullest inhale. Sigh it out and release. If your feet are together, your knees are open.

Use your hands, guide your knees and your thighs in towards one another. If your legs are long, bring your feet to the mat, staying on the blocks, bring the feet wide, let the knees come together to touch. Just for a few breaths. And then when you're ready, we're gonna roll over onto our right side off of our blocks curling up into a little fetal position. Rounding now through the upper back just to counter the shape.

And then press yourself up into a seat, sukhasana crossing your favorite shin in front. And just take a few, soofy rolls, just a circle and move through the spine. Bring your left hand on to your right thigh, very gentle twists to the right. Back to center. We'll twist to the left.

And back to center, left hand to heart, right hand to belly, bow the head in towards the heart, feel the space that you've created, Feel the sense of awakening, the sense of aliveness through the body, and honor your effort today with gratitude. Thank you so much for practicing with me today, Namaste.