Finding Vision

Thank you for joining me for finding vision. Today, we will use a chair, a bolster, and two blocks, and we're gonna get started down on the ground in Shavasana. So you're gonna come down right in front of your chair, swing your legs up and over the seats so that the backs of the knees are supported here by the chair. Place your hands on your low belly. Close your eyes. Take a nice big full breath in through the nose, exhale out the mouth.

And again, inhale. And exhale. And just allow yourself to relax here for a moment. Just settling in, feeling the chair, support the low back and releasing. Feel your toes, feel your feet softening.

Release any squeezing through your inner thighs. Feel the low belly softening. And then sense your low back, sense your sacrum. Just notice how it feels. Notice if there is any peace to your low back that may not be making contact here with the earth and see if you're able to with your awareness to allow the whole spread of the low back to soften down.

Relax your shoulders. Feel the spread across the chest and invite a softness to come over all of the muscles of the face. And then with your hands on your belly, just start to direct deeper breaths down into your hands. So that as we inhale, we feel the hands rise. And as we exhale, we feel the hands fall.

Let's take a few more breaths just like that. Feeling the rise with the inhale, the fall with the exhale. And then when you're ready, just very gently blink your eyes open and start to wiggle out your toes, wiggle out your fingers a little bit, maybe shift the head softly side to side. And from here, you're gonna bring your feet onto the edge of the seat. And you can scoot yourself back away from the chair just a bit. We're gonna grab one of our blocks, and you're gonna lift your hips, and you're gonna slide one block right under the sacrum at the lowest setting.

Let's start here with one block. Just keep your feet on the seat for a moment as the low back finds that block. And then if you have the space, you're gonna push your heels down into the seat one more time to lift the hips and we're gonna slide a second block. So both blocks stacked on top of one another at the lowest setting, right under the sacrum, and then you're going to extend your legs up and over the seat. Nice and long.

Just let your arms rest by your sides. For a moment, just let your feet do what they naturally wanna do so the legs are completely relaxed. And as we breathe into the belly here, see if we can direct the breath to move right around to the low back. Just imagining that breath pushing out into the block as we breathe in. And then as we breathe out, it comes back in.

Take a few more breaths just like that. And then see if we can bring our legs together. So it was if we're creating one big giant leg squeeze your thighs and towards one another. Invite you to point your toes so the big toes can touch. Maybe your inner heels touch.

And I want you to reach forward through the legs, through the feet, through the toes. Just creating a little extra space here and the sacrum and the pelvis. Take a few more breaths. And then let the legs relax. Bring your feet to the edge of the seats.

So we're just gonna lift our hips and slide only one block out, lowering down to that first block. And just pause there. Couple more breaths. And then we're gonna lift the hips again. You're gonna slide that last block out, lower down slowly, pause. And then go ahead and wind shield wiper your knees very gently from side to side.

Nice and easy. And then we're gonna roll over into a little fetal position onto our right side just for a moment. I invite you to round into yourself Take a couple more breaths. And then we'll press ourselves up, and we'll make our way up and into a seat in our chair. So come up to sit into your chair.

Bring your feet down to the earth and just windshield wiper the knees side to side. From here, bring your feet as wide as your mat, maybe slightly wider, heels in, toes slightly out. We're just gonna take a very simple fold. So just allow your head to relax, allow yourself to empty forward. Let the sits bones be nice and heavy here.

Shake your head. Yes. Shake your head. No. Take a few more breaths. And then we'll slowly roll ourselves up. Hans come onto your thighs, run to your knees.

We'll inhale, arch the back, lift the chest, pull the shoulders back, and exhale curling rounds. Two more times just like that. Inhaling opening, exhale rounding. Last time, inhale open. Acts, how round?

Come back to that nice tall spine, interlace your hands to the back of your head. So you're giving your head a nice little basket. So with the interlacing of the hands to the back of the head, Feel yourself plugging your sits bones down into the chair. And think that as you plug the sits bones down into the chair, we can start to lift up and away from the pelvis. We can begin to bring the elbows in towards one another, and then we start to look up and reach the elbows up, finding our vision up, not down, not straightforward, but up, elbows reaching up.

Lean the head back into the hands, keep the vision out, start to tip the pelvis forward, even more, start to reach the heart forward, try to look up as long as you can, reaching the elbows forward, think forward, forward, forward, forward forward as much as you can. Keep reaching forward as far as you can. Keep the butt bone grounded, and then come down into a fold, keeping the hands to the back of the head. We're gonna come back up the same way we went down. So before we start to rise, reach the elbows forward, throw the head into the hands.

Start to look up, reach up. Ground through the sits bones, reach up, look up, look up, look up, find that backbend at the top, and we'll keep doing this a few more times. Just folding and unfolding. Keeping that field of vision as we reach out of the hard shell of the back, we reach out of our roots and our foundation, to find where we wanna go, to find the space, keep reaching forward. Keep reaching forward.

I'm gonna do one last time. So throw the elbows forward, reach the heart forward, look forward, start to look up, look up and let that vision guide you. And then release the arms. Take a moment here. Roll the shoulders, forward and back up and down.

Maybe circle out the head. Then we will take one of our blocks, right, towards the edge of our mat. We're gonna do is you're gonna extend your legs nice and long for variation of dandasana, staff pose. So bringing your heels onto the blocks, let your feet just kinda naturally relax. Let your legs, your feet do whatever they naturally want to do.

For most of us, it's probably gonna be this external rotation. Our feet are gonna open up nice and wide, which is fine. See if we can start to roll the inner thighs in towards one another. Bringing the big toes together to touch. So we'll feel our knees moving slightly in, our heels slightly out, giving us a little more space here in the sacrum and here in the low back.

Lift your chest, hip the pelvis forward. Keep flexing the feet, bring your hands to the back of the head, lift the low ribs up and away from the pelvis, find your vision. It's always up and out, reach the elbows up, Breathe. Sit bones are heavy. Pick yourself up and away from the sits bones.

Five more breaths. Keep reaching up. What is it that you want? Keep reaching up. Two more breaths. Beautiful.

And then relax the hands and the arms. Take your feet off of the block and go ahead and windshield wiper your knees softly from side to side. So we're gonna stay seated towards the edge of our chair here. From here, walk your feet forward so the heels are right under the knees, or maybe slightly ahead of the knees. We're gonna move into a variation of pigeon.

You're gonna take your left ankle, onto your right thigh. Flex your left foot. And then again here, see if we can wiggle so we can really feel ourselves sitting right in the center of the sits bones. Take a few rounds of cat and cow. With the left ankle on the right thigh.

And then keep that sensation here of the cow, so the pelvis is tipping forward. Bring the hands to the back of the head. Elbows in, lift yourself up and away from the hip joint. There's lots of space, vision up, elbows up. Five big long inhales and long exhales here.

Keep the vision reaching up. Big breath in, exhale. One more time inhale. And exhale. Release the hands and the arms.

Bring your left foot down. Rince it out. Just go a little bit side to side. And then we'll take the other side. So right ankle onto our left thigh flex the right foot. Little bit of seated cat and cow here.

With the right ankle on the left thigh. Sort of feeling it out, finding that position of the pelvis so that we can lift up and away. Keep the pelvis tipped forward. Once again, hands to the back of the head, press down through the sits bones, elbows in, elbows up, lift up, look up, find the vision, lift up and away. Five breaths.

Big inhale. Exhale one more time. Inhale and exhale. Good release. Windshield wiper your knees side to side.

And from here, we're gonna come to stands and move your chair a little more towards the middle of the mat. You're gonna bring your hands onto the top of the chair. Walk your feet back any amount so that we feel that our arms are fully extended. Bring your heels out, your knees and your big toes slightly in. Bend your knees, push your butt back, reach the heart forward, find length, find the vision. So you're pushing back to reach forward and maybe just a very slight gaze up just for a few breaths.

Keep pushing the butt back, reach the heart forward, find that space. Keep the sense here of the heart reaching forward, but reaching back, and just let your head, let your chest drop down. Even though we are folding here, there is still a sense of a reach for it and a reach back. Five breaths. Big in the hell.

Big XL. Beautiful. Slowly pull yourself up. Walk towards your chair and just take a moment, roll the shoulders up and down, forward and back. And then we're gonna take our chair.

Gonna turn it so that the seed is facing the long edge of the mat. Grab your bolster, place your bolster horizontal onto the seats. And then to the right of the mat, you're gonna place one block at the low setting one block at the high setting on top of that first block. From here, we're going to sit about a quarter of the way back onto the bolster. Veer a little more towards leaning back into the back of the chair.

K. We don't wanna be too far forward. Otherwise, we will feel like we're gonna fall forward. So fear a little more towards leaning back. From here, right hand is gonna grab the bottom of the seat. My left hand has the top of the chair. Gonna guide me back into a nice big backbend.

So keep a hold of the chair as long as you would like, so you're getting this big opening across the chest. Notice your feet in particular. Are your toes lifting? Are they squeezing? Can we find every point of our foot plugging down into the earth, right foot and the left foot. Right big toe, outer right heel, right pinky toe to inner right heel, the left big toe, outer left heel, the left pinky toe inner left heel.

Push all those corners down. Take five more breaths. Take a big breath in. Big exhale. One more time. Big inhale fill up.

Next, I'll sigh it out. And when you're ready, using your hands, just gently pull yourself back up. Stay seated on the bolster. Bring your forearms onto your thighs, interlace your hands, drop your chin into your chest, and just kinda find a nice little rounding into yourself here. And then allow yourself to slowly rise up.

Take your right hand to the left side of your head, just guiding your right ear towards your right shoulder. You could let the left arm hang and be heavy. Turn your gaze down towards the right armpit. It's changing the position here of the stretch. And then draw the chin down to the chest, release the right arm by your side, lift the head, left hand to the right side of the head.

Left your left shoulder. Turn the gaze down towards the left armpit. Release the left arm, chin back to the chest. Slowly lift the gaze, bring your hands onto the center of your chest. Take a moment here to bow your head towards your heart, to seal in your effort today, to seal in your practice, your vision with gratitude.

Namaste.