Help My Tired Back

Thank you for joining me for help my tired back. For this practice, we will be using a chair, a blanket, a bolster, and two blocks. We're gonna get started standing at the back of the chair, connect the backs of your thighs or your sits bones to the back of the chair and reach your arms back and let your fingertips graze the top or the sides of the chair. Roll your shoulders back, close your eyes. Take a nice big full breath in through the nose, exhale out the mouth.

Again, inhale. And exhale. And just allow yourself to begin to notice how the body feels in this position. Using the contact of the fingertips in the chair, we feel our shoulders rolling back. We feel the expansion across the chest.

Let me feel a slight lift through the center of the chest. A very soft drawing in of the low belly towards the spine. Plug your feet into the earth, but keep a little soft bend to your knees. Notice what's happening in the head and in the neck. Are we lifting the chin or are we hucking the chin, see if we can find somewhere in the middle, where we can begin to feel the sides of the neck lengthening, up and away from the shoulders.

Notice any tension in the face or in the jaw, see if we can invite the jaw in the face to soften. And then become aware of your breath. And as you notice the breath, just begin to notice any rigidity in the body here and see if we can begin to invite a little softness, a little effortless effort. So keep your awareness of the breath. You're just gonna release your fingertips from the chair.

Keep your arms by your sides. Just notice that the shoulders naturally want to cave and round in. And if so, it's okay. Let's see if we can invite the suggestion that the chair gave us of the shoulders just gently rolling back. Find a nice lift from the low ribs up to the crown of the head.

So we're moving up and away from our foundation. Very gentle tucking of the tail. Starts deep in your breath, inviting the breath to not only expand the belly, but to move out to the sides. So finding a more spherical breath, about five or six more rounds. And see if with every exhalation, we can soften the shoulders a little bit more.

Take a big full inhale. Big full exhale. And just blink your eyes open. We're gonna now turn around to face the seats. So you're gonna fold the chair up so that the seat folds up towards you.

You're gonna grab the chair and make sure that we can keep the chair shot with our hands. So you're gonna grab both legs of the chair. We wanna find our hip crease with the top bar of the chair. So once you find the hip crease with the top bar of the chair, bring the chair legs down so that the chair legs are out at a slight diagonal. You can then perhaps walk your feet out a little bit wider than hip bone distance, heels out knees slightly in.

Do bend your knees. We're going to begin to fold, walking our hands down the legs of the chair. We want to squeeze both legs of the chair together with our hands so that the chair doesn't open. So keep your knees bent, walk your hands down any amount. And then once you find a place where you can be, we're gonna start to allow the whole back here in this forward bend to relax.

So just notice where we are feeling sensation. See if you can allow the low back to release Allow the middle part of your back to release, and then the upper part of your back. Notice if the legs are completely straight, the knees are locked. Keep bending the knees. Relax and release your head.

Some of you, perhaps, maybe your forehead will meet the back of the seat. If not, it's okay. This we soften here, into the shape, see if you can begin to notice where you tend to effort the most in your back. And it's just information to inform us. It's nothing you need to do, but just notice.

And as you notice, perhaps invite the awareness to move there so that we can soften with intention soften in that overworked area. Keep breathing. As we breathe here in this compressed state with the belly, move the breath to the low back. And we'll take about 10 more rounds of breath here. And then the last five breaths, with your hands still squeezing the legs of the chair.

Think that you could pull the chair up and into the crease of the hips a little bit more to come forward and fold a bit more. And then very gently, crawl your hands up. Roll yourself up slowly. Open up your chair. And just pause for a moment.

Just take it in. Try to release any squeezing in the glutes. So now, let's take our blanket. Unfold it. Place it onto the seats. Take your bolster towards the back of your mat and make sure you have a couple of blocks in front of your seat.

We're gonna come down into our knees you're gonna place the tops of your feet on your bolster. From here, we're gonna move through the back of the chair, crawl ourselves forward so that the belly and the chest are coming onto the seats. From here, you're gonna lift your knees and slide yourself forward just enough that you can lower your forehead down onto the block Let your palms relax on the earth, and then let your knees hover. We're gonna rest here for a moment. It's a really nice restorative, supported variation of child's pose using the chair.

So the knees, ideally, are hovering here. You're getting a really nice tractioning through the low back. Notice again where we effort, where we overwork. You're gonna feel that part of your back, trying to clench and hold on here. See if you can.

Just invite it to soften and let go. Alright. Knowing you are fully supported here by the props, by the chair. And as we adjust to being on our bellies on the surface of the chair, it's a really great opportunity. To start to practice really breathing into the whole back of the body. Alright. Because of the compression of the belly, I'm actually able to feel the tissue of the back.

It spending as I breathe in. And so just imagine that breath moving to every corner. Into every single edge of your back. Stay for just another moment. Keep allowing the knees to just be heavy.

Allow the toes to relax. Let go of that effort in the back. We'll take about 10 more of the longest inhales, longest exhales. When you're ready, you're gonna slowly start to lift your head up off the blocks. So just slide back so that your knees make contact with the earth. Just pause here for a moment.

And use your feet to push the bolster back so that your feet find the earth, walk your hands back, carefully crawl out of the chair. Keep your hands on the seat. Just ground yourself for a moment. Draw your chin in towards your chest. Relax your shoulders.

And just notice what you notice. And then we can use the chair to come up to stand. We'll take our blanket, and we'll place it on the top bar of the chair. Gonna have your bolster near the back of the chair. We're gonna take our blocks at the highest setting towards the upper corners of our maps.

From here, you're gonna bring your heels onto your bolster. So we're giving ourselves some high heels. So you're on the balls of your feet. Okay. So heels are in the bolster, we're in the balls of the feet. From here, I'm gonna start to bring my hands onto the seat of the chair so that I can measure and make sure that I have enough room to come up and over the bar of the chair so that I find the hip crease with the top bar of the chair.

My hands are gonna reach forward for the blocks. My knees are bent. And then I'm gonna start to fold forward, lowering the forehead perhaps onto the edge of the seat. Make sure the arms are reaching out nice and wide. The knees have that soft bend. Drop in and notice.

Just become aware. Can we allow the chair here to do the work? And we allow the chair to elevate the pelvis to elevate the hips, the bolster to support the heels, the blocks to lift us up and out of the shoulders, the whole back able to relax. Greed well. Just for a moment. Big breath in, exhale.

One more time. Big inhale. Big exhale. Very carefully, very gently, bring your hands back onto the seat. Use your hands in the seat to lift the chest up. Walk your feet off the bolster, hands into the top of the chair.

Roll yourself up very, very slowly. Keep a soft gaze forward. Just pause. Let all of that move through you. And then from here, we'll take the blanket off of the chair.

We're gonna turn the chair I'm gonna take your block, set them off to the side. We're gonna sit on our bolster facing our chair. Sitting in sukhasana just to begin, so crossing your favorite chin in front of the other, you can move the chair a little bit closer to you. Bring your left hand right onto the seats, bring your right hand to your low back, lift your chest up, feel the sits bones plugging down into the earth, and just take a very gentle twist to your right. Very gentle.

Keep the spine nice and tall. Come back to center, bring your right hand onto the seat, bring your left hand to your low back, lift through the chest, ground down through the sits bones, twist to your left. And then we'll come back to center From here, we're gonna open our right leg up nice and wide. You're gonna keep your left foot inside of your right thigh. Move the chair as close to you as you can.

And we need to reach up as high as you're able to and try to grab the top of the chair. You can flex your right foot. Push down into the chair with your hands to stabilize the chair and think that as you push down, we can lift the chest up, tipping the pelvis forward. So just feel that nice lift up, that grounding down. You're gonna keep the left hand on the top of the chair, walk it a little more towards the middle.

Your right arm is gonna weave under the chair for the back bottom or middle part of the leg of the chair. From here, this top hand is stabilizing the chair and pushing it down. The bottom hand we're gonna use to start to pull the chair towards us. Bend your left elbow up towards the sky, keep pulling with your right hand and turn up and under yourself. Push the right sits bone down just a little bit more.

And then come back to center. Take a moment. Bring your forearms onto the seat. And then let's switch sides. So you're gonna open the left leg out nice and wide.

Right foot comes inside the left thigh and again anchoring yourself really feeling the sits bones plugging down. Reach up as high as you can, push down into the chair, stabilize and lift up and out. Couple of breaths. Keep the right hand up on the chair, perhaps walk it a little more towards the middle. Left arm is gonna weave under the chair and grab for that back right leg or the middle part of the back right leg.

Once we make contact, this top hand is stabilizing. It's pushing the chair down. The bottom hand is pulling the chair in towards us helping us to spin as we roll the right elbow up to the sky. We roll the heart up. Big full inhale. Big full exhales can be using that left hand, pull to turn, push down to stabilize.

And then come back to center, release the hands into the seat. Just take a breath. Just slide your chair just for just a tiny bit so that we can swing that left leg back and finding sukhasana easy seat. You're gonna fold your forearms over the seat. And then come forward and fold head can turn in one direction or the forehead could be straight down.

Just take a moment. Let's close your eyes. Just let all that work that you've done, all the space you've created, let it settle in, let it simmer. And if your head is turned in one direction, switch the direction of your gaze. And then slowly begin to rise up.

Place your left hand on your heart. Place your right hand on your belly. Bow the heading towards the heart. Just take a moment and acknowledge your effort today, and all that you have cultivated with gratitude. Namaste.