Open My Heart

Thank you for joining me for open my heart. Today, we're going to be using a yoga chair, a bolster, a strap, and two blocks. Let's get started seated on the chair. So we're gonna find a nice tall seat towards the edge of the chair, bringing your feet forward so that your heels come right under your knees, let your palms rest on your thighs, let your feet be about hip bone distance apart. Close your eyes, enroll your shoulders up and down just for a moment to feel the shoulder blades sliding down the back. And then take a moment to drop into stillness.

Noticing how the body is feeling in this moment. It's becoming aware of any areas of tension. Any areas of gripping, of grabbing, and see if we can begin to invite with our awareness, the body to begin to relax. Soften your jaw. Allow all the muscles of your face to relax.

Feel your shoulders dropping down, even further away from your ears, unsqueeze your toes, relax your palms, And move your awareness now to your breath. And just begin to watch the natural flow of your inhale and your exhale. And as you're ready, start to deepen the breath. So just allowing yourself to breathe in through the nose, expand through the belly. Feel the breath rise all the way up into the chest.

And then as you exhale, let the breath leave from the chest down and out the belly. And let's just take a few more rounds. Breathing into the belly, feeling the breath rise all the way up to the chest. And breathing out, feeling everything drawing in. When you're ready, just gently blink your eyes open.

Bring your feet a little bit wider now than hip bone distance part, heels can be turned slightly and toes slightly out. Move yourself a little further towards the edge of the seat, but keep your sits bones really grounded into the chair. We're gonna grab our blocks and you're gonna place the blocks in between your feet at the highest setting. We're gonna find a nice forward fold here. So just start to empty the torso down.

Let your hands stay on top of the blocks at the highest setting, especially if we have some tenderness through our low back. Just give the low back a moment to settle into the shape. Relax your head. Relax your neck. Notice if the toes are scrunch squeezing, gripping the edges of the mat.

See if we can relax the toes. And then start to sense the breath. Keep the breath moving into the belly. And as the breath moves into the belly, see if we can imagine the breath swirling around and filling the low back. So we begin to breathe not only through the front of the body, but the back of the body.

And then perhaps turn your blocks down to the next setting. So toaster level setting with your hands on them, allowing yourself to empty down even more into the fold. He feeling the sense of the sits bones pushing down into the seats, the torso moving forward and down in opposition to the sits bones moving down. Let's just take a few more breaths here. And then from here, I want you to flip your blocks back up to the highest setting.

Just lift up about halfway. Start to look out in front of you. So as you look out in front of you, can you push the butt back into the seat. And feel as if you push when you push the butt back into the seat, you can reach the heart in the lungs forward and out of the hard shell of the back. And as we start to find that space, walk your hands as far out in front of you as you can.

So we really feel this nice reach out of the hard shell of the back. I love to come up onto my fingertips on the blocks. But just reach the heart forward, move the shoulders back, push the sits bones back, push down into your heels and think that as you push down into the heels, It gives you a little more space to reach forward and out of yourself. So keep that sense of the heart reaching forward, the tail reaching back, length through the sides of the chest, just a few more breaths here. And then go ahead and walk your hands and your blocks back.

And then roll yourself up slowly one piece at a time. Let the head come up last and just let your shoulders roll at the top. You can bring your feet in so they're a little more hip bone distance apart. Keep your hands on your thighs or in your knees. We'll inhale arch the back, lift the chest, look up, and then exhale tuck the tail, curl and round.

Just move back and forth for a moment, arching, and opening, exhale rounding, coiling in. One more inhale open, and exhale round. And back to that nice, tall spine, you're gonna take your right hand onto your left knee. So try to really fit the right hand into the left knee. We're gonna reach back for the top of the chair with our left hand or our left arm.

Start to move your left knee into your right hand and think that as the knee is moving into the hand, you're able to twist from the right shoulder blade over to your left, keeping that nice long, tall spine. So keep moving the left knee into the right hand. Couple more breaths. And then we'll come back to center and we'll switch. So your left hand's gonna find your right knee.

Think that the right knee is moving into the left hand. Your right arm right hand is going to reach back to the top of the chair. Keep moving the right knee into the left hand, and think that that turns you from your left shoulder blade over to the right. Couple more breaths. I'm gonna go ahead and come back to center.

Grab your strap. We're gonna take our strap around the top of the chair and through the space from the top of the chair. Give yourself a little tail with your strap and then make sure that the strap is available on the seat. We're gonna come down onto our knees and onto our shins into a virasana So sitting down on your heels and want you to move the chair towards your back. So depending on your height, right? The chair might connect to either the shoulder blades, or some of us to the low back.

The chair is just there simply for feedback. Grab the legs of the chair with your hands. As you push down into the legs of the chair, push into the tops of the feet. And as we push into the tops of the feet, feel the lower ribs lifting up and away from the pelvis. So we start to feel this really nice rise from the pubic bone up to the naval, up to the sternum, opening up the chest, opening up the heart.

It's quite active. So keep pushing down, keep lifting up and away from those lower ribs. And then see if we can allow the sit bones to stay quite heavy towards the heels. So just take a couple more breaths here. Just feeling that action pushing down and lifting up the same time, lower ribs up and away from the pelvis.

Then we're gonna reach back and we're gonna grab our tail that we've created with our strap. You're gonna bring it into your left hand. And then let your right hand also grab the strap. So to bring your elbows in towards one another, I'm not pulling too hard into the strap, otherwise the chair will lift, but I'm just gently pulling the strap towards me. So they get a little more feedback in contact with the edge of the seat.

From here, find the same sense without us pushing down into the legs, find the same sense that we're pressing into the tops of the feet, We're lifting up and away from the pelvis. We have the rise from the pubis up to the naval, up to the sternum, we're lifting up, start to reach the arms, start to reach the elbows up, and maybe begin to crawl your hands as far back down the strap as you're able to. You'll feel an even bigger sense of a back bend here. Elbows drawing in towards one another, arm pits rolling in Let's take five big full breaths, belly ribs, chest, exhaling from the chest, from the ribs, from the belly. You can drop your head back if it feels okay on your neck. And then slow and with control start to come up.

Just pause for a moment, bringing your hands into your thighs, maybe close your eyes and just notice the availability here in the chest. Perhaps a little availability in the shoulders as well. Take your right ear to your right shoulder. Just a little love for the neck. Draw your chin down towards your chest.

Just relax the chin into the chest. Lift the head up and let's switch. So left ear, left shoulder. Relax that right shoulder down. And then one more time, roll the chin down into the chest and just pause.

Keep dropping your shoulders. I'm gonna slowly lift the head. From here, we're gonna come up onto our shins facing the seat. So here, try to bring the chair towards your thighs so that we really have clear contact with the thighs and the edge of the seat. We're on the tops of the feet.

I'm gonna reach up here with my hands. I want you with your hands in the top of the chair to push down, and as you push down, push into the tops of the feet, and find that same rise from the pubis up to the naval up to the sternum. So just feel that lift up. Keep the contact of the thighs to the edge of the seat. So you're moving the thighs forward into the edge of the seat. And as we move the thighs, forward into the edge of the seat, we can lift up even more, and we can begin to gently lean back for variation of Ustrasana camel.

So it's quite active so the arms are engaged pushing the chair down. Take a couple more breaths just like this. And then maybe play for a moment. Keep your left hand on the top of the chair. Maybe reach the right arm up to the sky.

Maybe start to reach the arm back behind you. Push your thighs into the edge of the seat. Perhaps we can start to feel a little more up, and then we can lean back. Maybe the right hand can graze the right heel for a little half camel. Keep moving your thighs into the edge of the seat.

And then start to swim your right arm back up. Right hand finds the top of the chair. Keep pushing the thighs into the edge of the seat. Let's try the other side. So left arm reaches up.

This right hand's anchoring the chair down and pushing into the tops of my feet. Flow your left arm back. Maybe you can graze that left heel a little half camel, push the thighs forward. Feel the heart lifting up and folding back. And then slowly reach that left arm back up.

Bring the left hand back to the top of the chair. Just come to sit on your heels for a moment. Hands onto your thighs. Just tuck your chin into your chest, relax your shoulders. Couple of cat cows here.

So just inhaling, lifting the chest, shoulders back, and then exhale, curl and round. Maybe a couple extra breaths here. It should feel really nice. Inhaling opening, exhale rounding. And last time, inhale open.

And exhale round. So we'll place our hands on the seat and we'll come up to stand. We're gonna flip our chair so that the seat is facing the long edge of our mats. We're gonna grab our bolster. Place your bolster horizontal on your chair.

We're gonna take one block on either end of our mats. And we're gonna start standing to the the left of the chair. So from here, you're going to nestle your right hip, about halfway onto the bolster. So just about halfway. Make sure that you feel the support of the top of the chair against that left hip. Tendency here is that we want to kind of lean forward.

I want to invite you to think of leaning back. We're gonna come over the edge of the bolster in the chair so that our right forearm comes down onto the mat. Your left arm is gonna reach for this block, and you're gonna walk the block out in front of you as far as you're able to. From here, you're gonna cross your right ankle over your left Let your legs be heavy. Reach out even more through the left fingertips.

Lean back so we should feel the right side of the chair, kind of right up against our right lower back. And then you're gonna roll the left arm pit in and see if you can roll your chin up and under the armpit slightly. And just breathe here for a moment. So we're just turning the heart up to the sky. Try to keep heavying the legs.

Keep the reach through that left arm and just let the breath pour into the left side of the body. Let's take a few more breaths. And then bring your left hand down right beside your right hand. Getting out of this is a little awkward. You're just gonna slowly push yourself up if you're able to just stay seated for a moment.

Maybe closing the eyes, maybe again dropping the chin in towards the chest. And then we'll switch sides. So from here, we'll come onto our left hip. Our left hip will come about halfway. Into the bolster.

We're gonna fold up and over the bolster. The left forearm comes down and again, make sure we're leaning back so we feel some contact with the chair. And then reach the right arm towards the block. Try to find the block with the hand, and you're gonna cross here your right ankle over your left. Keep reaching out through the right fingertips.

Lean back, roll the right armpit in towards the ear, maybe roll your chin up and towards the armpit and breathe Just fill the right ribcage with the breath. Couple more. And then turn your gaze down walk your right hand back. Who's gently begin to make your way up. Stay seated on your bolster.

Again, chin to the chest. And then we'll come up to stands and we can move our props off to the side. You're gonna turn your chair back so that the seat is facing the short edge of the mat. We will place our blocks. One at the low setting near the edge of the seat, and we'll start with one at the high setting on top of that first block.

From here, we're gonna step into the chair. We're gonna step into the chair and we're gonna sit down sliding your sits bones forward so that as we come back, The shoulder blades will find the edge of the seat. So make sure it's your shoulder blades or your bra line and not the low back. The low back will hurt if it's all the way up here. Make sure it's the shoulder blades.

As you lower your head down and back, let the head rest on that top block, let your feet stay grounded, think heels out, big toes slightly turned in. We'll start with the arms open up nice and wide here. So just feel that sense of opening, that delicious sense of space. Across the chest, across the collar bones. Just take the opportunity to breathe quite deeply here, filling all parts of the lungs.

So option to stay here for a few more breaths or perhaps reach the arms up overhead and grab your elbows with your hands and really try to make a good fit so that the elbows are fitting right into the palms. And then let the forearms move back and down. So you're giving yourself a nice frame. You're gonna roll the armpits in towards the ears. And let's take about five or six more of the biggest fullest breaths here.

Last one, big inhale, big exhale. Just release the elbows. You're gonna let your arms reach up for the top of the chair, so make that contact first. Then from here, you'll start to pull yourself up, stay seated, stack your forearms on top of the chair and just lower your head down, chin to the chest, just pause. I'll just counter with a very gentle twist.

So twist to your right, bring your right hand to the back of the seat. We'll come around to center and we'll twist to the left. And we'll come back to center. You have your hands on the top of the chair. We're gonna stand up.

And you'll just push the chair down, step out of it, and then bring the chair back up We'll find a seat. So in your seats, just be nice and comfortable. Let your palms be turned face up on your lap. Close your eyes. And just draw your awareness down into the body.

Notice how you feel now. Notice any shifts, any changes. Place both of your hands right on the center of your chest. Lift the heart up into the hands. Feel that open heart.

Feel that space that you have created today. And bow your head towards your heart, and just acknowledge your effort you're in practice with gratitude.