Grounded Morning

Welcome to grounded morning. Let's get started standing at the top of your mat. Take your left hand to your heart, take your right hand to your belly. Make sure your feet are at least hip bone distance apart or slightly wider. A soft, a little generous bend to your knees.

And if it feels comfortable, just close your eyes. Start to move your awareness down into your feet. Noticeing your big toes to your outer heels. Noticing your pinky toes to your inner heels, and feeling yourself just lifting up slightly through the arches of both feet. And finding that soft, a little generous bend to the knees, move your awareness to your low back, offering up a very gentle tucking of the tail drawing down of the low ribs to the pelvis.

And then feeling a slight lift through the center of the chest. Chin moving very slightly into the chest so the sides of the neck are elongating, the crown of the head is reaching up. And from this space, just start to notice your breath. Just noticing if the breath is moving into the hands on the belly or the hands on the chest. Either is fine, but allow yourself to become aware.

And as we invite our minds and our awareness to be with the breath, See if you can begin to draw up your awareness, even deeper into the body as well. Sensing any areas of the body that feel rigid. Any areas of the body that feel tight or that may be working really hard. Just invite those areas to begin to find softness. Relax your forehead.

Ungrip your jaw. If you're squeezing your eyes shut, can you find a softness to the eyes? Feel your shoulders relaxing. And notice the hands that are making contact with the body. Can you feel Let's settle heat behind the palms. And noticing if we're moving slightly forward and back, or if we're swaying side to side.

And whatever we are doing, just giving over to it for a moment. So if we are moving forward and back or side to side, just feel yourself giving over to that movement. And then finding that sweet stillness. Let's your belly relax. And as you're ready, start to deepen your breath, really directing the breath right into the hand that is on the belly.

So that as we breathe in, we feel the belly push out into the hand. And as we breathe out, we feel the hand drawing in with the belly. Let's take about five or six more of just the deepest fullest conscious breaths here. Inhale fill up. Actale release. One more time.

Big full inhale. Sy it out, let it go. And then gently releasing the hands, letting the arms just come down by your sides. Just take a moment, let the breath return to a nice natural, steady, even rhythm. Keeping the feet grounded just gently blinking the eyes open and coming aware of what is surrounding you in this time and in this space.

And then when you're ready, let's reach the arms high to the sky. Come down into a nice, generous forward fold, grabbing your elbows with your hands, and just swaying it outside to side. Keep a generous bend to your knees. And then go ahead and release the elbows. Let's just roll it right back up one vertebra at a time.

Roll your shoulders at the top. And again, inhale reach up. Exhale forward fold, release slowly, slowly down. Keep the knees bent. Grab the elbows again, move from side to side.

Release the elbows. Roll it up. Piece by piece. Rolling the shoulders. And last time, inhale reach up, rise.

Exhale forward, fold, empty down. Plant your hands. Let's step back into our first downward facing dog. So just be generous here with your movement feeling yourself going maybe from hand to hand to foot to foot, spending your knees. Finding stillness with deeply bent knees.

So we can start to move the belly close to the front thighs. And just get curious here noticing your hands on the earth, feeling that contact with the earth, feeling the balls of the feet making contact with the earth. Take a nice big full breath in. Big exhale. One more time. Inhale.

XL. Inhale rolls you forward into a high plank. So really feeling the hands making that contact with the earth. Finding just a slight lift up through the arches of the hands, rolling your shoulders back, draw the navel in, take a big breath in, and exhale has come all the way down to the belly. Ten two fingertips nice and wide outside of your mat.

You're gonna push into the tops of the feet, feel the kneecaps lift, feel the chest lift, baby cobra inhale. Exhale slowly lower down. Again, push into your feet. Let the kneecaps lift. Let the chest lift.

Xhale come down. Two more times just like that. Push the feet. Lift the chest. Accale down. And last time. Push the feet made be pushing a little bit into the fingertips now lifting up.

Four head comes down. Just put your hands on the earth for a moment, make that contact. And then press yourself back into a child's pose. These can be nice and wide. Bring your forehead down to the earth and just move from side to side.

Taking five breaths here, feeling yourself surrendering down. Two more. Last one, pick in the heel and exhale. Go ahead and come up onto your hands and your knees. Let's come back into downward facing dog.

From our dog, raise your left leg high to the sky. Let's bend the left knee and open up the left hip. And just start to take some circles, stir your thigh bone, stir your foot all around. We'll turn the left hip down and then take the left knee forward behind and outside of your left wrist moving into variation of pigeon here. You're gonna slide down into the top of the back leg, top of the back foot.

I wanna invite you to stay up onto your finger pads here. So rather than moving straight down, just stay lifted. As we lift up, feel the top of your back foot pressing down into the earth so that as the top of the back foot pushes down, we can feel ourselves lifting the chest up and away from the earth. Push your left shin bone gently into the earth, lift your chest a little bit more, take a big breath in, and then exhale very softly just round through your upper back. Inhaling opening, exhale tucking and rounding, and just start to move back and forth.

Just for a moment at your own pace. I'm using the contact with the earth. To find some fluidity and some freedom through the upper body. Let's take two more. And then you're gonna come down into your forearms.

Even some of you may come all the way down, or you can just stay up on the forearms interlacing your hands. Moving your shoulders back. I'm just dropping the chin down into the chest and directing your breath here right into that left hip. Just noticing what's going on in that left hip today with a sense of curiosity. The upper back, which tends to kinda wanna hold on for dear life. See if we can keep inviting the upper back to soften.

The hands are gripping and squeezing. Just interlace them or let them soften. It'll take about 10 more breaths here. Take a few more. When you're ready, you're gonna come back up onto your fingertips again.

So feel again that contact back foot into the earth, left shin into the earth, pubis, navel, sternum, moving forward, and moving up. Take a nice big inhale. Stick out your tongue for a lion's breath. One more time. Inhale. Lions's breath.

Good. Come onto your palms. You're gonna tuck your back toes. We're gonna lift the knees so we can just slide it forward a little bit more. So we're gonna swing the left leg over and around the front of the right leg, finding gomukhasana in our legs. So my right knee is fitting as well as it can behind my left.

You're gonna open your feet up nice and wide, and again, tops of the feet are making contact with the earth. Search to circle your hips counterclockwise. And just notice here if we're looking back, see if you can challenge yourself to look forward ever so slightly. You're moving the shoulders back. Let the movement really come from the pelvis from the hip joint.

Finding these nice, sweet circles, free pelvis as best we can. And then let's go clockwise. Now keep your legs crossed. You're gonna start to come up onto your fingertips again, and I want you to crawl your hands as far back towards this front knee as you can. If you need to stay here, stay here, otherwise pushing the tops of the feet into the earth, finding that grounding, you're gonna start to come up to stand on your cross legged shins.

We're gonna begin to draw the left hip back and the right hip forward. If we are feeling wobbly, and we're gonna fall over, push again into the tops of the feet. From here, bring your hands to the back of your head. Interlace your fingers, move your elbows in towards one another, keep pushing into the tops of the feet, lift the naval, lift the sternum up, deliver the head into the hands, and so to reach the elbows up, look up, and then begin to lean back as you move your thighs forward. Just five big full inhales, long exhales here.

Two more. Keep lifting up. Keep leaning back. And then release the hands from the head slowly and carefully as you can, bring your hands down to the mat, uncross your legs, circle your hips a few times one way. Few times the other way.

And then let's come back into downward facing dog. Go ahead and pedal out through the feed again. Moving any way you need to. Big full inhale. Raise your right leg high, bend the knee, open up the hip.

Take some circles. Just move the thigh bone, move the foot around. Right hip turns down. Look forward. Take the right knee forward behind and outside of the right wrist. You can slide your right shin forward any amount.

Stay up onto your hands. Come up onto your finger pads. Push into the top of the back foot. Lift your chest up. Up and away from the earth and then push your right shin bone down into the earth again.

So we're buoyant. We're lifted. Inhale arch, lift the gaze, Exhale soft tucking on the tail curling and rounding. Back and forth a few more times. Last one.

Open up. Talk girl and round. And then when you're ready, come down on your hands, your forearms, maybe interlacing your hands, letting your shoulders come back. So even though we are folded here, there is a sense of the heart reaching for it. Just breathe, awaken that sense of curiosity, what's going on.

Never judgment, never critique. Just awareness of what is. And again, that upper back, it's gonna wanna work and try to hold everything together. See if you can let the upper back soften. Hans. If they're gripping like you're on a roller coaster, let the hands soften or interlace.

Keep breathing. Just a few more rounds here. Let me slowly come back up onto your hands. I'm back up onto your fingertips. One more time, lift your chest.

Let's take a nice big inhale. Exhale. Again, inhale. Exhale. Tuck your back toes. Lift your back knee. You're gonna slide the back knee forward just a bit so we can swing our right leg around the front of the left leg. So we're going to cross on this side.

So left knee behind the right, and each side is gonna be wildly different. So just notice. Let's circle our hips clockwise. As best as we can, keeping the contact of all 10 toenails on the earth. And then go the other way.

Good. And then finding stillness. Hands will walk back towards that top knee. You're gonna come to stand up on your shins. Hands to the back of your head. Interlace your fingers, right hip's gonna come back, left hip's gonna come forward.

Push into the tops of the feet. Drop the head into the hands. Start to lift the pubis, then naval the sternum up, lean back, head dropping into the hands, elbows up, vision up as best as you can. Move your thighs forward. Keep breathing.

Study yourself pushing the tops of the feet into the earth. Big inhale. Excellent. One more time. Inhale. Big exhale. Release the hands from the head, slowly bring your hands down, unwrap your legs, circle out through your hips, maybe tucking your toes just for a moment, get a stretch in the bottoms of the feet.

And then let's find downward facing dog. Big inhale, and exhale. Look forward between your hands. You're gonna step your right foot forward between the hands. Seal your back heel down about 45 degrees rising up for warrior one.

Arms reaching up nice and high. So just check-in here with your hips, right hip coming back, left hip coming forward. Right. If that feels scrunched, you're gonna take your left foot over to the left just a little bit more. Feel your feet rooting down into the earth. So we're connected to the earth, but from the feet rooting down, There is a big lift through the naval through the sternum so the chest is reaching up as the arms reach up.

Make sure that front knee is moving forward. We're pushing into the back foot. Take a big inhale. As you exhale, fly your arms back for flying devotional. So I'm reaching back to move the chest forward.

The right knee is moving forward, grounding into that back foot. Again, that grounding gives us the sense of rise, the sense of moving forward and reaching out of ourselves. Big inhale. Big exhale. Your next inhale, reach the arms back up, and then exhale.

Bring your hands down. Downward facing dog. Full breath in. Full breath out. Look forward between your hands.

We're gonna lunge the left foot forward between the hands. Same thing. Right foot comes down at about 45 degrees. Rise up vera badrasana one. Arms high. So same thing here with the hips, left hips coming back, right hips coming forward.

Alright. So I have a lot of space, a lot of volume through the low back and in the hip joint. That right foot can always go over to the right a little bit more, especially if you're feeling scrunched. Connect to your stability. Connect to the earth through the feet. Feel the rise through the chest.

Big breath in. Axail arms fly back for a flying devotional. So that left knee, left shins moving forward, left hips turning back. As I reach back through the fingertips, I'm reaching forward through the chest a little bit more. Feeling the grounding through that back foot.

Big full inhale. Exale. Inhale rise. Warrior one. XL, bring your hands down downward facing dog.

Take a moment, pedal out your feet. Big full breath in. Stick out your tongue. One more time. Inhale. Walk your hands back to your feet.

And slow and with control, roll up the spine one piece at a time. Head comes up last, shoulders roll at the top. Bring your feet together. So allow the big toes to touch, the inner heels to touch, squeeze your thighs together, squeeze the glutes, Reach the arms high, interlacing your fingers. I'm squeezing the pawns, pointer fingers are free, cross at your thumbs.

I'm gonna take a nice big side bend over to the left for standing half moon. So I'm not locking out my knees. There's a little bit of a bend, but I'm thinking again, my feet are connecting into the earth. They're grounded down so that I can reach up and away. Sending your right hip over to the right, use the left hand to guide the right arm to the left just a little bit more.

And if it feels okay in your neck, Start to draw your chin up and in towards your right armpit. And then inhale back to center, reach up, find the length, And let's exhale to the other side. So go to the right. Again, right hand is pulling just lovingly. That left arm over to the right.

My left hip's moving to the left. And pushing it down a little more into that left foot. Her body's dropping down and to the right. And same thing if chin can draw up in towards the left armpit start to allow that contact to happen. Inhale back to center, keep the palms interlaced, move your thighs forward, squeeze the glutes, lift the chest, the low ribs up and away from the pelvis, look up and then start to move the chest up a little bit more.

Think up, up, up, and then gently back. Very gentle. Doesn't need to be huge. Inhale come back up and exhale. Slowly separate the feet forward fold. Take a moment. Grab the elbows.

Move it outside the side. Take your head yes and no. And then go ahead and release the elbows. Roll yourself up one vertebrae at a time. Nice and easy.

Meaning your feet once again about hip bone distance apart, your left hand to your heart. And your right hand to your belly suggests where we began, closing your eyes if it feels comfortable. And just taking a moment to drop back into the body, to feel the space that you have opened up today through your practice, to feel that sweet sense of grounding, which opens us up and makes us available to soar into potential. Bow your head towards your heart, acknowledge your effort, acknowledge your strength with gratitude. And I thank you for practicing with me today.

Namaste.