🌳🌷 Hello Beautiful Friends!!
🍃Today, we finished our deep dive into the 8 Limbs of Yoga What an absolute treat is has been over the past 8 months to dive into this ancient yogic philosophy with so many beautiful souls! My heart was so full during today’s class!! 🙏🏻💕! If you've been with me since my very first class, you've learned all about the Yamas, Niyamas, Asanas, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, and Dhyana! Today, we dove into the final limb, Samadhi!
💫Samadhi is the highest state of meditation, the pinnacle, the zenith of peace & stillness. It is the letting go of fear, of our own ego, to see we are in fact connected to the universe, to God, to the Divine. We find bliss here, we find enlightenment! We experience non-duality. We are one with our inner self, and one with Divinity.
☀️Joy happens when we dissolve into stillness. Like a drop which dissolves into the ocean. When we are ready to dissolve into the entirety, we let go of fear, of the ego, even when the entirety is vast. It begins to surround us, envelop us, existing everywhere, and within us. We are not separate, we are connected with the universe, with Divinity. We have arrived home.
🌱 We opened on our bellies, not often cued in classes, to find complete surrender, vulnerability, complete relaxation of the body. We allowed the belly to connect to the earth, the cheek to meet our mat where we found support & serenity. We took some full body cleansing breaths, then into our intentional pranayama, deeply inhaling through the nose, and exhaling with our lips closer together as if blowing out incense through the mouth, to lengthen and slow down our exhale, calming the nervous system! We released past events & future schedules as we enter this busy month of May. We took time just for ourselves, present in this space, in this moment. We warmed up the body, moving into low cobra lifts, floating the hands & feet, rolling back to child’s pose, creating low cobra-child’s pose waves. Super yummy!! We flowed into Broken Wing and Sphinx, and relaxed into pelvic rocks.
🌻We melted back into our child’s pose, extending the fingertips to the tight, center, and left, and then floated up into hero pose, knees together, sitting onto the heels for our self-healing reiki practice. We softened the body, released jaw clenching, forehead tension, chest tightening. We focused on our mental health, sending healing energy to the mind: often a time traveler, becoming stuck in the past or traveling too far forward into the future. We connected to the body, which is always present, releasing the past frustrations & future to do lists.
🌳We set our intention, moved into sidebends, a mini backbend, into our puppy, melting the heart. We brought the hands together to form our “Bliss Bowl!” We filled our bowl with those beautiful moments in life where are completely filled with joy, where nothing else mattered. We will bring those moments of bliss into our hour as we move from pose to pose, in the tough still, quiet moments, to bring us closer to peace, to Samadhi!
🌷We moved in yummy ways, with a yummy warm up flow of Cat-Cow, adding in lifted bent legs, stepping back crunching the opposite knee to nose, for a few rounds! We melted the foot back into supported side planks with arm circles, and then melted into 1-legged child’s pose. Super delish!! We opened our heart & lungs, lengthened, twisted, extended, flowed linking breath + movement, opened our hips, releasing tension & tightness to release negative energy & nourish the body.
🌱Our first flow spiced up our energy, kept us warm, and rooted to the earth as we flowed from our tadasana through side bends, forward folds, downward dog + knee to tricep taps, and knee pushups with extended toes, into through Warrior 1 paired with a bind, humbling our warrior. We unraveled into a Warrior 2 to the back of our mats, exalted into our Sky archer with floating toes, back into Warrior 2, and melted into our Triangle! We floated into our Twisted Half Moon, and in those tough moments, brought our Bliss Bowls to mind to help us be content in the moment! We melted into Skandasana on each side, and to our seat for a Fallen Tree fold and then lifted the hips into a Rainbow arch! We floated into a Wideleg fold, options for twists or headstand, and then walked the hands to the top of our mat for a twisted lunge, and option to bind the back foot! A good quad stretch! We flowed through vinyasa to honor the left side. We encircled the healing space on our mats!
🌻Somatic experiencing gave us tools to regulate our nervous system, to serve as a reset button! We began at the crown, tapping the fingertips all over the crown, tapping into the temples, the jaw, the perfect release for jaw clenchers like myself. We tapped into the collarbone, and into the sternum! We inhaled through the nose as we tapped into the sternum, and stacked the hands at the heart as we exhaled while audibly humming! If you hold tension here in the chest, this is a nice release! We ended with one hand pressing into the base of the skull where the vagus nerve begins, and the other hand pressing the index + middle fingers at the hairline, and slowly moving down between the eyebrows, down the bridge of the nose! We often do this massage for our cats, dogs, even horses, as a calming tool, so today we nourished ourselves with the same gesture! We swaged noticing the effects: coolness, heat, or tingling sensations! We removed anything harmful & toxic still attached to the body! We stimulated the vagus nerve, the super highway of information located at the base of the brain and runs throughout the entire body, touching every organ system! We sent messages to the brain that the body is not under threat, it does not have to exist in a continuous active state (fight mode). We have the ability to help our nervous system shift fluidly between states when each are needed, the sympathetic & parasympathetic nervous systems! Both are useful and 100% needed, but we do not want to become stuck in one state for too long. These practices are so useful off the mat as we encounter stress or triggers in our daily lives!
🌳Our final flow began in Tadasana, and moved into our Pilar, opened the gate, stepped behind the opposite leg to the outside of our mat, floating back into our open gate, strengthening our balance! We floated into our Dancing Shiva, came back through center, and coiled the arms and legs into our Eagle for a few crunches, and unraveled into a standing split. We glided into our 3 limb down dog, bent the knee, opened the hip, circling through the hip, or flipping our dog! We extended the leg, hovered the knee at the chest, extended, and threaded the foot through into our Fallen Star, Side plank, and finally melting into our pigeon! We took time for King Pigeon or Mermaid before resting our pigeon.
🌷Our cool down moved us into our cow face with a bind behind the back, exhaling into a forward fold. We unraveled into a straddle, melting the heart forward, and then walked the hands up, bringing the knees in for a seated child’s pose, and planting the feet & hands, lifting the hips for our reverse table, and melting the hips to swing between the hands, hovering above the mat, lifting back up into our reverse table, swinging down a few more times, hovering the hips, and then melting to the mat for our Staff forward fold. We moved to the left side, and after our straddle, brought the soles of the feet together into our Butterfly, hooked the big toes, balanced on the tail bone, extended the legs into another straddle, our Balancing Bear, and melted back along the spine into our Happy Baby! Always a graceful, fun transition!! 😂
🍃We lifted the feet to the sky onto our Tpose, crossed the legs into our reclined cow face, lengthened along the IT band, relieving any sciatic nerve pain, and melted into our Supine twists. We then settled into our savasana! Together, we completed a full body cleanse! We found Samadhi, meditative peace, a calming of the mind, insight into ourselves, we experienced growth fearlessness, release, and freedom. Yoga helps us shed what we no longer need, so we may see our most purest selves! Connect to divinity! 🙏🏻To slow down means to heal! That is why savasana is the peak pose, the most important pose, the goal. To find peace. In the stillness! We surrender. We discover ourselves again without the layers, the armor, the walls. They all come down, revealing our divine self.🙏🏻
🌻🌱That’s what I LOVE about yoga, it renews the soul! What we do on the mat, transforms our life off the mat! It is beautiful!!
🌱🌷 I had a total BLAST creating this class’s playlist!! Listen to my “Samadhi” class playlist here! 🙏🏻
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2M8msfEqIgqT3enCwxotBq?si=9U6IJB2mQZivwNWIxpQSYA&pi=u-nimXS146TQuv
🍃Come practice with me Mondays at 8:15am!🫶🏻 ✨🌿
