Rescue Me

Thank you for joining me for rescue me. For our practice today, we will need two blocks, and we are gonna get started on our bellies in half frog. So go ahead and come on to your belly. You're gonna open your left knee and your left thigh out to the side so that the left shin is parallel to the outer edge of the mat. Stack your palms on top of one another and lower your forehead down to your palms.

Swing your head just very gently from side to side. And then allow yourself to begin to find stillness. Let's take a nice big breath in through the nose. Exhale out the mouth. Again, inhale and exhale.

And just take a moment as you begin to embrace stillness to tune into the body. Start to move out of the mind and down into the sensations of the body. Just becoming aware of the feet and the toes, see if we can relax the feet and the toes. Feel your shins relaxing, your calves. Feel the right thigh soften.

The right glutes. Relax the left thigh. Relax the left glutes. The low back relax, the low belly. Meal the middle part of your back softening.

Fill your chest softening down. Your upper back, your shoulder blades. Relax your shoulders. Notice of the pads that the fingers are sort of squeezing and holding on, see if we can relax the hands. The fingers, unclench the jaw.

And then allow your awareness now to move to the breath. Invite the breath to begin to deepen. And as the breath deepens, feel the belly pushing into the earth. Still out the mind to rest on that action of the belly pushing into the earth so that as we inhale, we almost feel ourselves just softly lifting up through the back of the body. And as we exhale, we feel ourselves drawing a little closer into the earth.

Stay with that breath. Take about 10 more. And if the mind is in a current state of overwhelm of stress anxiety, I'm gonna invite you as you exhale to make some noise to find the release through an audible sigh. Just allow that side to come from the belly. Take a few more rounds of breath.

Gently bring your left leg back in. Keep your forehead down. Just swish your hips from side to side. Keep the contact of the forehead onto the palms as we switch sides so that right knee, right thigh will open out to the side. So the right shin is parallel to the outer edge of the mat.

Once again, moving out of the mind dropping into the body through our awareness, move your awareness into your feet and into your toes, let them relax. Relax your shins and your calves. Relax the left thigh, the left glutes, the right thigh, and the right glute. Relax the low belly even more. The low back.

Feel the middle back relaxing, across the chest relaxes. The upper back, the shoulder blades, shoulders, down the arms, the hands, the fingertips. And again, unclench the jaw. Come back to those deep full inhales so that the belly is pressing into the earth. Giving us that reminder of the contact with the earth, groundedness of the earth, stability, the calm, the ease, and the support.

Take about six or seven more big full inhales. And again, if it serves, you're sighing out vocalizing the exhales to release. When you're ready, gently bring your right leg back in. Keep your forehead on your palms. Just swish your hips from side to side.

Lift the forehead up off of the palms. Invite you to tense your fingertips quite wide outside of your mat. Your legs can stay wider. The legs can come together. We're gonna press into the tops of the feet.

Keep the chin moving down and towards the chest and on and inhaled slightly lifting the chest baby cobra inhale. Exhale bring your forehead down. Just moving through this a little bit, so pressing into the feet, kneecaps lift, chest lifts, baby cobra, inhale. Exhale forehead down. Nice and slow a few more times.

Press into the feet, lift the chest, bhujangasana. Last time, press the feet, lift through the chest. Four head comes down. Bring your hands by your sides. You're gonna press yourself back into a child's pose.

Let your knees be spread out nice and wide. Send the hips back to the heels. Reach the arms forward. Lower the forehead down to the mat. So in keeping contact with the earth.

Let's take a moment to drop into the body here, noticing the low back, noticing the hips without too much effort, too much force. The hips just nurning back towards the heels, even if they're not all the way there. Keep the breath moving into the belly. Let's go ahead and take your hands for a little walk over to the left. Really reaching out through the left hand.

And think that as that left hander fingertips pushes down and forward, it moves the right hip back towards the right heel. Breathe into the right side of the body. And then go ahead and walk the hands back to center, take a breath in the child's pose. And then we'll switch sides. So we'll take our hands or arms over to the right.

Pushing down and forward a little more into the right hand. We think that that's moving the left hip, down and back. Giving us a little more space to breathe into the left side of the body. Go ahead and bring your hands back to center. Take a breath. And then press yourself up.

Onto your hands and your knees in a tabletop. Hand under shoulders, knees, under hips, and just inhaling arching the back. Drop up the belly, send the heart forward, exhale tuck, the tail curling around. Move back and forth just a couple times, just some cats, some cow. Last one.

And then from here, tuck your toes, lift your knees and your hips up and back into downward facing dog. Just take a moment to pedal out the feet. Shake the head gently. Yes and no. And then we'll walk our feet forward to meet the hands at the top of the mat, finding a forward fold.

Bring your feet as wide as the mat. Grab opposite elbows just for a moment and sway side to side. And then we'll release opposite elbows. Perhaps bringing your feet a little wider, heels and toes out. We're gonna grab our blocks.

You're gonna place them behind the feet so that we can sit down and find a squat, bringing your palms together at your heart, not actively pushing the backs of the arms and the thighs together. I'm just allowing here. Draw the chin down into the chest. It's breathing here for a moment. Feeling the contact of the pelvis, the sits bones on the blocks. Surrendering down towards the earth.

Breathing and quite deeply just drop that earth energy, that grounding, soothing calm energy. Breathing out, pushing out whatever we need to give back to the earth. Let's take five more breaths. From here, you're gonna plant your hands. Lift the hips up. We can slide the blocks out of the way.

Bring your feet closer together and step yourself back into one more downward facing dog. And then from here, just lower to your knees. Take a couple of hip circles one way, and then the other way. And we'll find a comfortable seat. So sitting up nice and tall.

Take your right hand onto your belly. Take your left hand on top of your right hand. Just a moment of breath. We're gonna take in two inhales through the nose and one long exhale out the mouth. So we'll sound something like this.

So let's go ahead and do that together. Inhale inhale, long exhale out the mouth. Few more times. Last time. Bring your hands onto your thighs, close your eyes, let your breath return to a natural, steady rhythm.

And from here in the space that you are in, just begin to become aware of any sounds that you may be hearing. Become aware of the temperature in the room that you are in. Notice if you can smell anything. Notice if you can taste anything. Sends the quality of your breath.

And as you are ready, open your eyes, and notice what surrounds you in this moment in your space. What colors, what objects, what might be in this present moment for you. And then placing both hands right at the center of your chest, taking a moment from this grounded calm place. To bow that in towards the heart, to seal in your efforts. To seal in your practice with gratitude.

Thank you so much for practicing with me today. Namaste.