☀️🏝️🍉Hello Beautiful Friends!!
🌻We’ve arrived to our Summer Solstice!! 🌊🍓The longest day of the year, where the light of the sun outweighs the darkness of night. We delight in the sun’s rays, the healing energy that radiates into warmth, growth, life, and rebirth. We pay homage to the sun, the most precious gold on earth!☀️✨ This is a pivotal moment in our year, where we can change the latter half of the year for the better. Remove obstacles, let go, reconnect to ourselves & loved ones, slow down. On the solstice, more daylight doesn’t need to equate to just doing more…we don’t need to use that time to clean more of the house, answer more emails, we don’t need to be more productivie…maybe rather than that, we can honor the extra daylight given to us with more time for the wellbeing of our souls! More time outside, listen to the birds’ songs, watch the swaying of trees, walks along streams, listen to the rippling of water, sit in the still, intoxicating beauty of the moment.
🏝️Our world is moving super fast, take the time to slow down, before your body MAKES you slow down either with injury, illness or exhaustion. Your mental health should always take priority, if it hasn’t, make this summer THE time to change that! Every breath is a new opportunity to begin again!
🌊Throughout this summer, I’ll be leading a heated vinyasa on Mondays, and a gentle version on Fridays! I truly love teaching the gentle classes, it encourages me to intentionally slow down, both my mind, the pace of class, and really focus on the mental health & somatic lessons, breathwork, and intentional words & movements. So, on Friday, I'll be teaching the gentle version of this Summer Solstice class!!🍉☀️
🍉We opened on our backs, spread the limbs out like starfish ⭐️ in a tidal pool, taking up space, grounding the body, connecting to the earth, from the crown, melting the shoulders, each vertebrae of the spine, down to the hips, and softening through the legs and feet. We placed one hand to the belly, one to the heart, and moved into our Pranayama practice, 3-part breath, filling up to the belly, to the chest, expanding the ribs, filling the lungs, to the crown, deep inhales through the nose, long slow exhales through the mouth, releasing all our past events, and future to do lists, becoming truly present! We took time just for ourselves, present in this space, in this moment. We slowed down the chatter of the mind! We floated the hands to the crown, placing the thumbs at the ears, inhaled through the nose, plugged the ears, and with our exhale audibly hummed creating our bee breath! 🐝 We lengthened long, hugged the knees into the chest, then into T-pose, flexed feet to the sky!
🌻We crossed one foot over the other, bent the knees, hugged the thighs together, into our cow face or shoelace pose, hands reaching for shins gently pulling the knees toward the chest. We unraveled the top leg out to the side, cradling the leg, and the other leg stayed bent, cradling the knee toward the shoulder, a yummy hip opener! We folded the legs back into our cow face, planted the bottom foot and melted into a supine twist! We came through center for a bridge and honored the other side! We hugged the knees into the chest, rocking side to side massaging the low back!
🏝️We rock ‘n rolled along the spine, floated forward into the hands, and melted the hips back into our child’s pose, resting here, walking the hands to the right and left, through center and walked the hands back to the knees into our hero pose, for our self-healing reiki practice! We rubbed the palms together, creating healing energy! We often forget our hands are tools for healing, not just for others but for ourselves as well! We softened the body, released jaw clenching, smoothed through the forehead, released 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, inhaled the fingertips to the sky, melted into side bends, interlaced the fingers reaching the palms outward to the sky and extended forward curling the back, pressing the palms at shoulder height straight forward, extending to the sky and curling in, creating a little flow. We unraveled the hands behind the glutes opening the chest into a backbend, then melting forward into our puppy.
🍓We moved in yummy ways, with a yummy warm up flow of Cat-Cow, adding in organic movements, adding in leg lifts with bent knees, toes to the sky, curling inward, nose to knee, and back up into our Tiger🐅, reaching back to bind the foot! We released the foot to the back of the mat, lifting the opposite knee to the chest, curling the back, nose to knee, then reaching the bent leg up into our Tiger 🐯 , repeating this flow once more, then extending the leg out to the side, melting the hips back into a back into a 1-legged child’s pose. We flowed through our cat cow, and honored the left side. 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 downward dog, into plank, creating waves as slowly as possible, vertebrae by vertebrae, into pranam, low cobra, downward dog, into our tadasana, rooting the feet into the earth, feeling that grounding energy all the way up to the crown. We flowed through side bends, forward folds into plank, chaturanga, upward dog, downward dog + knee to tricep taps, and knee pushups with extended toes, coming up and stepping the foot between the hands rising up into Warrior I. We inhaled into cactus arms opening the chest, exhaled the fingers out to the sides of the room and forward, repeating 2 more times as if we’re pulling water toward us, creating waves! 🌊 We brought the hands into prayer twisting to the side, elbow hooking the knee, back heel lifting. We released one hand down, lifted the other into a twisted lunge! The lifted hand floated down framing the foot, back foot stepped in, into our Pyramid. Blocks were beautiful here, as we squared the hips, lengthening the hamstrings. We rocked into the toes & heels, and floated into our Half Moon🌙
🍉We walked the hands to the long side of our mats, into a WideLeg Forward Fold, rolled up into a 5 point star, into our Goddess, dancing side to side, floating the arms to the right and left creating waves, then straightening the legs and arms, creating Eagle arms, folded forward, letting the head and shoulders hang heavy, swaying side to side, our Ganesh, 🐘 elephant trunk, Remover of obstacles, sweeping everything out of our path! We released the arms to the foot at the back of the mat, lifted the opposite foot to the sky into Standing splits, exhaling into curtsy taps to the earth, inhaling toes to the sky, then the curtsy tap took us to our seat for a Lord of the Fishes twist! 🐠 We flowed through center, extending the top leg forward and opening into our Heron! I see herons everyday in the summer! We planted the foot down at the opposite knee, floated back up into our standing split, into a wide leg fold, took some twists, and the walked the hands to the top of our mat into our Lizard, 🦎 rocking forward & back, melting into the forearms, or opening to the side binding for the back foot! We flowed through a 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 agitate those emotions, to help them release, and to serve as a reset button. We began at the crown, massaging the fingertips all over the crown, into the temples, the jaw, the perfect release for jaw clenchers like myself. We pulled gently downward on the ear lobes, outward at the ear edges, and upward at the tops of the ears! 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 squeezed into the shoulders, deltoids, biceps, triceps, and forearms, and swayed noticing the effects: we can feel cool, heat, or tingling sensations! We removed anything stuck, 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 helped our body adapt to triggers. 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, swan diving into a forward fold, and stepping back into downward dog. We floated the leg to the sky, curled the knee to the chest, extended, bent the knee opened the hip, choosing to flip our dog, lengthening again, knee to the chest, threading the foot through under the opposite leg into a Fallen Star!🌟 We melted again into a downward dog, walked the hands to the feet, sitting into our Toes of Fire! 🔥 We could keep the knees together, open out to the sides, into our Flying Owl for a balance challenge! 🦉 We rolled up to stand, flowed into either a tree or Half Lotus with our padma mudra🪷extending our lotus to the surface of the dark water to meet the light, before folding forward crossing the legs. We walked the hands forward, dropping the knees, flowing into our dancing camel, moving fluidly side to side! We honored the left side of this final flow!
🌊Our cool down moved us from cross leg fold into downward dog, into our plank, adding in a few toe taps out to the right and left, and melting to the belly. We created a pillow with the hands, forehead to our pillow, as we rocked the pelvis slowly left to right, massaging our solar plexus! ☀️We tented the fingertips out to the sides, created low cobra waves, then reached for one foot lifting up into our half bow, opening through the chest, reached for the opposite foot for half bow, eventually into our full bow! Even adding a little rock forward & back! We crested more pelvic rocked, then extended the fingertips forward lifting into our Superman, Locust, and clasping the hands behind the back, lifting up into our Shark!🦈
🐠We clasped the hands forward, index fingers pointing forward, tucked the toes and flipped to our backs, opening up into starfish again! ⭐️We hugged the knees in, toes to the sky into our T-pose, crossed one foot over the other, into our reclined pigeon, 🐦 then planted the bottom foot, for a supine twist! We honored the opposite side, and then opened up into our Happy Baby, with a little sway side to side. We made time to come into any final poses we needed before our final rest such as legs up the wall, bridge, plow or wheel!
☀️We made it to our PEAK POSE: savasana! Together, we completed a full body cleanse! We found 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. I loved this quote for our time together today!🫶🏻☀️🌺
☀️ I loved creating our 🌊☀️SUMMER SOLSTICE 🍉 playlist! Listen here!!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2YIuVFRQLGm7Sqdn1rsIjU?si=e1kLC0eUQL-Wjwb4MYMa5Q
🍃Come practice with me Mondays at 8:15am!🫶🏻 ✨🌿
