Yoga for 2: Prenatal and Postnatal Artwork
Season 2 - Episode 4

Rock-a-bye, Mama

45 min - Practice
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Description

Rock yourself gently to this sweet yoga lullaby. Eden guides a practice for mamas that incorporates easy swaying and fluid movements. With tenderness, we create length in the spine and space through the chest, shoulders, and hips. This practice will get your juices flowing, uplift your spirit, and help you feel more calm and connected. (Suggested for mamas 6 weeks after childbirth.)
What You'll Need: Mat

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(water splashes) Hi, welcome. I'm so happy you're here to practice with me, and I'm very happy to be sharing this practice with you today. We're gonna be doing a fairly gentle practice, which I like to call Sweet Yoga Lullaby for Momma 'cause it involves a lot of rocking and swaying like we do for our babies. And we're just gonna be offering that to ourselves right now, very good for the spine, for the joints, softening the ligaments, activating the muscles and the breath. And we're gonna start in standing, it's safe for about, I'd say 6 weeks out of birth, unless there are any conditions that you need to consider.

But it, like I said, gentle and safe. And for this practice, I'm going to be using a blanket and a block, so if you have that at home, you may just bring that into your practice if you need it. And we'll just start with feet about hip distance apart, just tuning into our breath. Maybe bringing your hands to prayer, dropping into your body with your eyes closed for a couple of breaths. Just feeling your connection with the Earth through your feet.

Noticing the relationship between your breath and your posture. Maybe feeling your shoulders relax down towards the Earth a little bit as you exhale (deep breathing). And the lungs and diaphragm expanding as you inhale, (deep breathing) good. Just feeling the jaw and the face soften and relax, and just with eyes nice and relaxed and soft, we'll just gently open them, and we'll start to bring a little bit more movement into our practice linking the movement with the breath. Take a nice big inhalation, reaching the arms up (breathes deeply) and exhale.

Spreading those arms nice and far and bringing them back to the heart. Couple more. Now we're just breathing through the nose (breathes deeply). Inhaling deep into the lungs and belly. Exhale, expanding the spine.

Feeling that connection between the palms. Just one more time. Inhale, reaching, breathing deep. Exhale nice and slow, bringing the palms back to the heart. Let's just pause here, just for a breath with our eyes closed.

(breathes deeply) Good, and then we'll start to walk our feet out, pretty wide. And spread our arms, just enjoying the freedom in the arms. Reaching through the fingertips, good, and just expand through that whole body. Shoulders expanding, and then just float the arms down onto the hips, or wherever they feel comfortable. And we're gonna start to sway, so we're just bending one knee, and just extending over to that side, and then the other.

Just rocking side to side. Feeling your feet connected to the Earth. Feeling a little stretch in your Achilles tendon. Grounding through the straight leg as you bend to one side. And then if you want to, you add a little bit of a shoulder roll, just softening through the shoulders.

Feeling your rib cage sway side to side, as your legs bend. Keeping it nice and slow. With a tendency sometimes to just speed things up. Let's just keep it slow. Inhaling, exhaling.

Couple more, inhaling, exhaling. Now we'll just add a big arm circle. So reaching through one arm, one comes front, one goes back. Again just enjoy having your arms nice and free, moving through the air, expanding. Good, starting to feel your legs a little bit soft, and we'll just do two more.

Last one, right here. And then just bring it all back into the center, good. And now we're just gonna rotate. And so our feet are about hip distance apart, and they're about two feet apart, and we're just gonna sway front to back. And start to bend that back leg a little bit.

So it's nice and slow, and you're just rolling through the foot, feeling that connection all the way through the toes and then back up. And then you can add the arms, just swing forward and back, keeping it nice and slow. Feeling the inhale here (breathes deeply). And exhale (breathes deeply). Inhale (breathes deeply), exhaling (breathes deeply), just feeling a softening in the Achilles.

The arms reaching, energy all the way through the fingertips, exhale. Let's just do two more. One (breathes deeply), and this time, we'll just hold it forward and just pause. (breathes deeply) Lengthening through the spine, softening the shoulders, maybe rolling them down the back a little bit to avoid this tendency of them creeping up by the face. So just giving your neck a lot of room to expand with your spine, good.

Couple more breaths here, reaching through those toes. If you want to, you can play around with balance, just lifting up that back leg, still keeping the shoulders soft. Last breath, and we'll just sway the the arms to the other side. So feet, again about hip distance apart, and about maybe two feet, 1 1/2 to two feet apart. Whatever feels comfortable for you, where you feel like you get a little stretch right here in the hip flexor as you come forward.

And a little stretch in the Achilles tendon as you flex this front foot should feel pretty good. You can do it with or without arms, so inhaling, exhaling back. Just a nice rocking motion. Just like natural waves coming into shore, and back out. Maybe glance up if you're using your hands, bringing your eyes into your practice.

Few more. Seeing if you can get a little more length in the spine now as you get warmed up. And sink a little bit more into the Achilles tendon. Notice how your feet feel. Maybe get the sense of massaging them with the Earth.

And last couple around, and then we'll just pause here at the top. Nice and easy, so again, maybe bending your elbows, rolling your shoulders down your back, lengthening through the spine, pausing here. See if you can kind of square the hips forward, and if you want to again, just play around with the balance. Just lifting it up. No big deal if you wanna put it down, you can put it back down.

Keep the shoulders down away from the ears, so that you have room for your neck to grow and breathe. Good, last couple of breaths here (breathes deeply). And we'll just sway the arms forward and take it all the way around, back to the other side. And then we're gonna go into like a modified Crescent. So feet, again are about hip distance apart, and then you'll step one leg back.

And just check your alignment here, seeing that your front knee is right on top of that ankle. And then rotate your hips so they're squaring to the front and you're on the ball of your back toes. It requires a little bit balance and a little bit of engagement with the the core. Just slight little tilt in the belly forwards, so that you can square the hips, and feel your navel drawing gently towards the spine. Nice and easy right now in our practice here after giving birth, just being very gentle with ourselves.

And then we'll just play around with the arms. So inhaling, you should feel a little stretch in that hip flexor, and then exhale, open. If you want to, you can add a little arch in the upper back. As you inhale, feel your spine lengthen off of your hips and pelvis, and then open through the lungs, heart, diaphragm as you bring your arms around. Good, again, inhaling, reaching, lengthening through the spine.

Exhale, opening through the shoulders, the heart, just enjoying the freedom in the arms, the strength in the legs. Last time, let's just pause here. Here we are in Crescent, feel like a nice, soothing crescent moon. Again noticing the hip, your hip placement. See if you can square them a little bit, even if that means bending your back knee.

Good, and roll your shoulders down away from your ears. Give your neck that room to breathe and expand. Good, and if you want to, just gentle, gentle little pulses with the legs. So it's just very soft, very subtle. Start to open the arms, bringing the hands in front of the heart, just feeling that energy, right there at the heart space.

The strength of the Earth just pulsing through you. Couple more. Your breath, very connected to your movement. Face is soft and relaxed, good. And let's just come out of it by swinging forward, bringing that foot right back under the hip.

Open through the arms, ahh, good. And we'll just rotate around to the other side, just a nice big sway. So again, feet about hip distance apart, that helps with balance. And then we'll step back with the other leg. Getting a nice stretch in the opposite hip flexor.

Bending the knee slightly. Sometimes it takes a little wobbling to find your way into, that's perfectly fine. It helps if you engage slightly through the core, the navel towards the spine a little bit. And check the placement of your knee, just to keep pressure off the joints. So you want this knee right over the ankle, and feeling like a little bit of a squaring through the hips and pelvis forward.

Good, and sink into it as much as comfortable for you. Again, feeling the length and lift of the spine the opening and broadness of the shoulders. And we'll start to breathe and make those big arm circles. So inhaling, lengthening here, opening as much as comfortable, much as right for you. (breathes deeply) Good, feeling your weight, just falling right between the hips equally down to the Earth.

And then it's nice and buoyant and soft up above. Inhaling (breathes deeply), lengthening through the spine, opening, If you want to, again, you can add a little bit of a chest opener here. So lengthen through the spine, and then just a gentle little leaning back. Only if it feels right and there's no pressure on your lower lumbar spine. Good, pausing a little bit through the movement.

(breathes deeply) Last circle, big luscious inhale, exhale (breathes deeply), inhale, arms up. And then we'll do out little pulses. You can just either hold it here, or just start to pulse, just a little bit of a bend. Just feeling the stretch in the feet, shoulders, down the back. Face nice and soft.

It's getting those muscles a little bit warm. Good, feeling the navel supporting you, drawing towards the spine, and then start to softly open the arms. Bringing those palms together in front of the heart, feeling gentle and soft. Good, last couple. Opening through the shoulders, and then we'll pause up at he top.

Pausing here, and then just relax the arms down and around. Good, should be feeling kind of, little more open. Take it easy when you need to. Come in and out of it as you need to. Stay with the breath.

Soften where you can. Good, and we'll take a big, invigorating inhale with our legs nice and wide this time, super wide. Inhale, just glance up at the hands, lengthen through the spine. Let's do a forward fold, just through a flat back. So we'll just kind of almost pause right here.

Now, if you need to when you get to the forward fold, feel feel to soften the knees. Good, let the spine lengthen, just let that head dangle. Ahh, that should feel pretty good. If you need to, again, bend your knees. If you need to use a block to rest your head on, you can try doing that, just bringing your block, resting the crown of your head on that block if that feels good to you.

(breathes deeply) Good, couple of breaths here. Let the hands just connect with the Earth. If it feels better for you, you can rest your hands on your ankles. And then we'll inhale, lengthen the spine out, keeping our knees soft, lifting the sternum and the heart, exhale, just float it back down to the Earth, or to your block. Good, inhale, lengthening that spine out.

You might straighten the knees a little bit here, a little bit more if you want to. Exhale, release it down, (breathes deeply). Inhale, remember you're just giving yourself this nice gentle rocking motion, very natural, mmm, easy, soft, yet feeling your strength. It's a little bit of a challenge there. You're just kindly working through the challenge.

Good, rest here, soften everything out, and we're gonna float those arms open, and bring ourselves back into standing very slowly and carefully, through the flat back nice and slow. All the way up, reaching with the hands, palms together. Good, open through the shoulders, open through the hands, hands come to the heart. So now, we'll just bring our feet a little closer together. Maybe under our hips, just giving our ankles a little break.

And we'll do that same swaying movement adding a twist, and just using the arms. So one arm's gonna reach up, and the other arm's gonna float open to meet it. And then we'll just open and then rotate through the shoulders, the ribs, the heart over to the other side. So just as much as feels comfortable for you. We're just easing our way into a nice, very gentle twist.

Knees can be soft, and arms are just fluid. Just moving through the air being invigorated by the breath. Let's just do two more. And here we are inhaling, lengthening though the spine. Exhaling, transitioning and bringing ourselves to the other side.

And opening, good. And then we'll just open our feet once again. So going into another Forward Fold. A little bit pigeon toed in the toes, so they're facing each other, heels out just a bit. And lengthen through the sacrum and see if you can lift the sternum gently without arching the back too much.

So we're just protecting the spine. We're being very gentle and careful with the spine by doing that. If you need to, again, feel free to soften your knees, and we're gonna inhale. Open through those palms, ahh. Broaden through the shoulders, exhale.

This time just float it down, all the way down and rest your hands on your ankles. If it feels better for you, you can have your hands a little higher. Anywhere where you can get that sense of just kind of caressing your own body. So you just want to feel soft through the fingers, soft through the shoulders, soft through the jaw. Let the head dangle.

Allow gravity to lengthen your spine out. Good, and then we're gonna do another rocking, side to side motion. So we're gonna bend one knee, and slightly just look over towards that knee, keeping your head really relaxed, and then drawing your face a little closer to that shoulder, that's resting on that bent knee. So you're getting another little twist in a Forward Fold. So opening through the shoulders, we'll take it to the other side.

Take a nice inhale through the center and and exhale to the other side. Again, if your knees are bent the whole time, you can just come through like this. So knees can stay bent, just adding a little twist and rotation through the upper spine. Good, and just allow the rest of the spine to follow, as deep as you wanna go into the twist. Keeping your hands soft but connected to your legs.

Last couple here. Breaths fluid, spine is soft. Good, last one. And then we'll find our way back into center. Again, let's all bend our knees, nice and gentle with those ankles.

Relax that head, let it dangle, and then just take the arms and let them connect back to the Earth. And we're gonna roll it up this time. So tucking the tailbone a little bit, drawing the navel towards the spine, keeping that head nice and heavy, we'll just roll up very slowly and carefully. Last thing to come up is going to be your face. Ah, yeah, beautiful.

And now we're gonna heel-toe our feet back together. We'll step to the front of our mats, and we'll take a nice big inhale, lengthen that spine out (breathes deeply). We're gonna come into a Forward Fold again, softening the knees as much as you need to (breathes deeply). Good, and just pausing here, again, for a breath or two (breathes deeply). So now from here, we'll just start to work our way back into All Fours.

So you might just bend your knees a lot and just start to step it back, carefully, into All Fours (breathes deeply). And our knees are gonna be right under our hips and our palms right under our shoulders, and if you have any wrist sensitivity right now, which is very common in the early stages after giving birth, it's best to shift your weight back slightly. So that the angle's a little softer in the wrists. You can also add a little bend to the elbow 'cause we'll be here for a little bit. If that's still not cutting it and it's still sensitive, feel free to come onto your elbows.

Just take any pressure off of your wrists. We just wanna be really tender with ourselves right now. And so we're gonna do some Cat-Cows, just big, luscious, yummy breaths with a big arch. Rolling the shoulders back, a little tilt to the tailbone up to the sky. Good, and then draw the navel towards the spine.

Relax the crown of the head to the Earth. Do a couple more, maybe going a little bit deeper (breathes deeply). And we are articulating each vertebrae of the spine, noticing how it feels when you breathe (breathes deeply). Notice the sensations in the rest of your body as you move through this (breathes deeply). Like maybe, your face grows a little bit more relaxed.

Maybe your jaw loosens up a little bit right here. Your belly gets a little stretched, just a gentle one. A real gentle arch. This is the last time we'll do this, just rounding the back (breathes deeply). And then we'll find our way into neutral, and we're gonna just sit back.

We're just doing a rocking motion, sitting back on our heels until we ultimately end up in Child's Pose. We'll just start by rocking forward. Again, play around with your elbows, maybe you have them bent. Maybe you're on your elbows to protect the wrists, or you're up here just kind of rocking (breathes deeply), feeling the motion, just soften the joints, loosen the muscles. You gotta allow the breath to move freely through the body.

And then we'll just sink our sitz bone back onto our heels or onto a block or a blanket if you feel like you need a little support right here. You can just come onto place the block between your heels and your sitz bones. That can be really helpful. Or you just rest right there. But we're just gonna go into a little place of softness here.

Really relaxing the forehead onto the Earth. See if you can relax your belly, just let it rest on your thighs. Shoulders softening and rounding a little bit towards the Earth (breathes deeply). So Child's Pose, maybe just having that mind of playfulness and curiosity. Life is good and easy and fun, sometimes (chuckles).

Couple more breaths. So you could really relax those hip flexors. Good, so to come out of it, we're gonna round our backs and leave our fingers connected to the Earth for as long as we can until we're sitting on our heels. So it's like a, we're just rolling ourselves up out of the pose. So starting now, we'll just draw the navel towards the spine, and start to roll it.

Feeling a softness in your shoulders, softness in your neck, softness in the face, fingertips just caressing the Earth. Good, until your spine is straight and just sitting on top of those heels. Good, and again, if you need something, some support, you may wanna have a blanket right here, or a block, depending on what your body is feeling, it needs today. But we'll just do a little bit of a shoulder opener. And you take it to the degree that feels right for you.

So just walking the fingertips back facing the sitz bones, resting your weight a little bit into the palms. And again, feel free to bend the elbows, straighten them. Getting the sense of movement through the body, moving into stillness (breathes deeply). And just lifting the sternum a little bit, opening the shoulders a little bit more, and if you want to and if feel right for you, you can release your head back, getting a stretch in that neck. And if that feels really good, you can start to lift your pelvis off your heels.

Still breathing deep into the belly, nice full, but soft breaths. Those long exhales (breathes deeply), just one more breath here. And then releasing the sitz bone back onto the heels and we'll walk out of it very slowly, very carefully, keeping our shoulders open. Good, and just coming back on top of those heels. And we're gonna now work our way onto our backs.

So I'm gonna turn around, and just bring the soles of my feet down to the Earth, and place my hands, again, just like they were behind my sitz bones. And you can also try turning your fingertips out if that feels a little better on your wrists. Yeah, just be mindful of what's going on for you and your wrists, and your shoulders right now. And play around with re-positioning yourself and your alignment and your weight in a way that feels really good. And there may be a little bit of a challenge here in the triceps and that's okay, as long as it feels good to you.

We're just gonna lift our pelvis up now, making a Tabletop Position. Good, and just float it back down, maybe bending the elbows a little, feeling that weight falling into the elbows slight, and the triceps slightly. Inhale, pelvis comes up. We're just keeping our neck looking, I mean our eyes looking towards our navel (breathes deeply). Good, and this time we'll hold it up if that feels right to you, just lifting the pelvis as high as you can, softening through the belly here.

Just let those internal organs relax, like they're relaxing into gravity, into the spine, looking at your navel. Now you can sort of rock forward and back (breathes deeply), feeling your breath, bending your elbows, coming in and out of it as you need. So if you wanna lower and take a break, just kind of soften the shoulders a little bit, that's fine. Otherwise, just hold the pose, just rocking and swaying. And if this feels really good to you, you can just release your head back, and then just pause (breathes deeply), feeling an opening in the shoulders happening (breathes deeply).

Good, feeling a lift through the pelvis, connecting through the feet with the Earth. One more breath and on the exhale, we'll just relax those hips down, bring them a little closer now to the hands, and walk the feet out (breathes deeply). Kind of get a little sense of your, now your cheeks moving back, these cheeks moving back a little bit. Good, so you can kind of wobble yourself into it, and if you need to, you can bend your knees here, just wanna get the spine nice and long. And you can even use a blanket here to place under your knees if that feels like a little more supportive.

We're gonna keep our feet active, just bring your hands, again, right here, a little closer to the hips, but behind them, roll the shoulders open, If you want to, extend the legs way out, just keeping your gaze forward, the chin is parallel to the legs. Breathing, this one is a lot more challenging than it appears sometimes 'cause you're really getting a shoulder opener, spine is lengthening, so lot going on, so just feel what's going on for you. Couple more breaths (breathes deeply). Rest the legs down if you have a blanket under them. Good, and then just gently start to tilt your torso forward, so the spine is staying long and we're avoiding the temptation to just round into it.

Remove the blanket if you'd like, if you had one there. Really connect through the legs to the Earth, so just feeling them being active and energetic, and start to tilt, maybe walk the hands out a little bit. They can be on your calves, your ankle, your toes, whatever feels good to you. We're just getting a nice lengthening. This is good in toning for the uterus and the organs.

It's bringing nice fresh oxygenated blood to that region (breathes deeply), and lengthening out, breathing, getting a sense of broadness through the shoulders still. And it's like your heart and your sternum are reaching forward and out, creating room for your reproductive organs just to be massaged by your, top of your thighs. If you're not all the way down there, that's perfectly fine. On your next exhale, you can start now to round your back, so you can just release yourself into it, soften. You don't have to go super deep, but if you want to you can walk the hands out.

Allow yourself to get a little closer to the legs, maybe wobble your sit bones out from under you a little. Keep those shoulders away from the ears, you don't want them to creep up there again, and create any more tension in your neck, couple more breaths, that's all (breathes deeply). Allow the breath to help keep a sense of movement in your body, even if you're completely still, just a sense of lengthening out, a sense of deepening in (breathes deeply), mmm, good. And we're gonna round our backs up like we did last time, bringing ourselves back up on top of those sitz bones, and nice straight spine. Good, and we're gonna work our way onto our backs now.

Just bringing your soles of the feet down, and coming down whatever way feels right for you. So we're just working, gently working our way down using you elbows if you like, or if you like to do a little bit of core strength, just feeling that navel drawing in that's fine. Good, and we'll try a little Windshield Wiper of the knees. I'll walk the feet in a little bit closer to the sitz bones, and bring your toes, connect them, if that feels right for you and your knees, and then spread those hands out, arms out like big wings, ahh. Feels pretty good to lay here, maybe just enjoy it while you can, being able to be still in your body.

Attending to your own needs, feeling your own sensations, yet thinking of your baby and all of the gentle sweetness that it brings to you. Let's just rock and sway our knees side to side, so we're still breathing nice and fluid, and it's just like a little windshield wiper, rolling over the sides of our feet and across their soles, keeping it pretty slow, allowing for the natural curve of the lumbar spine to happen but still keeping that arch out of it. So there's just a gentle little curve, but not going too deep into any arch. You'll be going a little deeper in the twist now. And if it feels right for you, you can just let the knees fall over to one side.

and if you need, I happen to just have my knees fall on a blanket, if you need to rest them on a blanket that might be nice for you, if not you can just let them rest on the floor. And then maybe take this opposite arm, and just give yourself a little rub, like all, a little like reminding yourself that this is just supposed to be nice and easy and yummy and feel good (breathes deeply), nice and calm. We'll just hold it for another breath (breathes deeply). Good, and then we'll start to sway over to the other side. So reaching that arm out, keeping the shoulders connected, both shoulders connected, hopefully evenly.

And again, if you need your support right here under your knees, you can feel free to that with the block or the blanket. And then just give yourself a nice, like reassuring calm little rub of ease into the body. If you'd like to you can look over at that opposite arm, getting a little softness in the front of the throat and the neck. It's like a little massage for the internal organs for the lower spine and opening through the shoulders. Last breath.

Good, and just rock your way back here onto your backs, soles of the feet connecting. Just heel-toe your feet a little bit further apart now, so they're about hip distance apart. And you're gonna take, let's take your right leg, extend it up to the sky like you're trying to touch the sky with the bottom of your foot, and then there's just a little external rotation that happens, and you're just gonna float the ankle on top of that opposite knee. So you're just kinda like chillin' out, right now. So just kinda relaxing, like if you were hanging out having a conversation at dinner time or something.

Nice and relaxed. And then take this hand, if it feels right, and give yourself just a little gentle little push, just to open the hip. Just as just as much as feels right to you, you can have your other hand on your belly, and then sort of do that same movement we were doing a minute ago, the little rocking side to side. So it's like you're massaging your sacrum, massaging your lower back with the Earth, or giving the Earth a massage with your sacrum and your lower back (breathes deeply). Now you can go a little bit deeper and as do, start to open the arms just to give yourself that support and openness through the shoulders.

Now you can feel a little stretch happening in the hip, and if you wanna go even deeper, you could start to reach the hands in between the calf and the hamstring and lift your knee up towards your chest. You can use this elbow as leverage to open up the hip, and you can also just gently rock side to side. Staying really connected to the breath, you can only do this one if it feels really good. (breathes deeply) Some days feel really good, some days there's a lot of tension in there, you just need to be really gentle, so that the area that we tend to hold on to a lot. And we're doing so much physical and emotional labor.

Yes, it's a labor of love, but there's a lot that happens throughout the day, so (breathes deeply) we're taking this time to just be gentle with our bodies, take some time for some self-care. Release anything that we're holding onto that's not serving us. Good, and then start to place that other foot down, extend that leg up to the sky again, float the sole of the foot back down, and then bring the opposite leg up. So just flexing it enough that you feel a little stretch in the foot. External rotation, so it's like the femur's rotating in the hip.

Floating the ankle down into your nice chilled out Asana (chuckles), just relaxing, hanging out here, and then playing around with this hand, seeing if it feels good to open a little bit there. And if it does, just give a little pressure, gentle pressure, then sway side to side. Again, getting that nice sense of softening, relaxing the sacrum into the Earth (breathes deeply), and then as you're ready, just really start to open those arms. You can go a little deeper, it's just a gentle twist with a hip opener. So see if you can feel both happening (breathes deeply).

You're rocking over the sole of that foot that's supporting you (breathes deeply). If you feel that you're ready to take it a little deeper into the hip opener, you can just start to reach those hands through that little triangle, and interlace the fingers, and bring them in between the hamstring and the calf. Use this elbow for a little bit of leverage, if that feels good, keeping both feet a little bit active, so they don't just end up in the sickle. Just a little flex there, and then rock side to side, just like you would your baby. Rocking yourself into the Earth.

Good, breathing, staying with your breath, enjoying the slowness, really relishing being on your back, and being able to go slow, and letting go of anything that you'd like to let go of. Maybe you store it up in the hip, or just enjoying the sensations happening for you. Couple more breaths here (breathes deeply). Good, and your next exhalation, and just start to float this foot down, extend that leg out again, and float the sole back down to the Earth. Just feel the effects for a breath or two (breathes deeply), the hips may be a little bit freer, spine a little bit softer, shoulders a little more open, and we all know this next asana so well by now.

Or at least, we're getting to know it. We're gonna go into Happy Baby. It's probably taking on a whole new meaning for you. So taking the outer edges of the feet, drawing the knees in a little closer to the Earth, and if you need to, you can just play around with the position of the hands, but if it feels better to have them on the calves, that's fine, or just right here, no problem. We're just opening, allowing gravity to work for you.

Good, again, rocking side to side, massaging that lower back, kidneys (breathes deeply). Maybe just feeling that curiosity of a baby looking up at you with fresh eyes, so ready to learn about life and their bodies and ready to connect (breathes deeply). Breath is deep, belly's nice and soft and relaxed (breathes deeply). Couple more breaths here before we move into Savasana. All right, sometimes I like to give my feet a little squeeze, ahh, 'cause it feels so good.

And you can do that right now, if you'd like. And just rocking your way into stillness here, starting to reconnect the soles of the feet with the Earth. Let's just pause (breathes deeply). Again, feeling the effects of that practice, of that asana. And then just start to gently walk the feet out, maybe open the hips, open the feet a little wider than the hips.

Let the feet just fall open, walk the shoulders under the back a little bit. See if you can get that neck in a little bit of a neutral position so that you can really relax the back of the neck and the front of the throat. For some of us that means having it up on a little pillow propped up. So you might do that now, 'cause we'll be in Savasana just for a few breaths. We wanna get really comfortable.

Let's allow our palms to up and in a nice gesture of receptivity. Shoulders falling into the earth, nice and open, jaw is soft, forehead, eyes, relaxing (sighs). Again, if you wanted to kind of rock side to side to really soften the muscles from the bones, you might do that. Start to close your eyes, just going inward, allowing the breath to be very free. And notice your hands, how relaxed can you allow them to be.

Ankles and feet softening, relaxing (breathes deeply), few more breaths in Savasna, just feeling really held by Mother Earth, really embraced, cared for. Just appreciating that feeling of being held, knowing that you are, even as you hold your baby, and spend so much of your time and energy caring for others, just bring that sensation, that feeling to yourself right now (breathes deeply). So if you'd like to be here for longer, feel free. I'm going to start to come back into the Seated very slowly and gently. So if you're coming back into the Seated with me, just be very tender, very mindful, kind with the body.

Just rolling over onto one side, like a little fetal position, let's just pause there. Keeping our eyes closed (breathes deeply), and we'll slowly come up into Seated, just leaning with the rib cage just like you're just waking up out of a really nice nap, that are probably far and few between right now for you (chuckles). Ah, so really just feel that softness, that fluidity in the body. Working our way back into Seated, reconnecting our sitz bones with the Earth, lengthening through the spine, softening through the shoulders, relaxing through the eyes and the face. Let's bring our hands together into Prayer, little bit of gratitude for taking the time for yourself to practice, to take care of yourself, to be present with what is, good.

Nice last inhale (breathes deeply) through the nose, maybe exhale through the mouth, ahh. Good, and slowly open the eyes, good. Thank you very much for sharing this practice with me. Thank you very much. Namaste.

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