🌻 Hello Beautiful Friends!!
Today, we continued through the 8 Limbs of Yoga! If you've been with me since my very first class, you've learned all about the Yamas, Niyamas, Asanas, Pranayama, and Pratyahara! Today, we dove into the 6th and 7th limbs, Dharana and Dhyana!
🌱 We opened on our backs, so we could completely ground nearly every inch of our body to the earth, from the heels, calves, hamstrings, glutes, pelvis, each vertebrae of the spine, to the shoulder blades, shoulders, triceps, forearms, hands, and base of the skull. We took some full body cleansing breaths, then into our intentional pranayama, deeply inhaling through the nose, and exhaling with an audible bee 🐝 humming breath. We warmed up the body, moving into the hips by hugging the thighs to the chest, slowly lifting each leg to the sky, flowing into supine twists, and a rock n roll along the spine raised us into our seat where we moved through our self-healing reiki practice. We softened the body, released jaw clenching, forehead tension, chest tightening. We focused on our mental health, connected to the body, becoming present, releasing the past frustrations & future to do lists.
🌻 We set our intention, moved into sidebends, a mini backbend, into a forward fold, lifted and melted into child’s pose. We moved in yummy ways, with a yummy warm up flow of Cat-Cow, adding in lifted bent legs, crunching nose to knee, then reaching back for our foot, into our Tiger! We melted the foot back into calf stretches, opposite knee lifts, 1-legged child’s poses, and then crossed the leg over to stretch the side body. 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. We kept the dharna, concentration, focus, and clarity as we moved from pose to pose, and found serenity in the stillness.
🌷 Our first flow spiced up our energy, kept us warm, and rooted to the earth as we flowed through Warrior 1 paired with cactus arms flowing forward as if we were pulling water toward us, triple times, into a crescent-anjali to knee twist, into a Twisted Lunge, walked the hands around into a wide leg forward fold, rolling up into a Gaia Goddess + ocean waves to the right and left. We melted the hand to the earth toward the back corner of our mat for standing splits and curtsy taps, landing on our seats for a twist in Lord of the Fishes pose. We unraveled into our Heron as we opened the heart, and met back in our standing splits to land in our wide leg forward fold with Eagle arms as we swayed side to side, removing the obstacles out of our way with the help of Ganesh, our Elephant God! We walked the hands to the top of our mat, planted the hand to open up into Side Angle, floated up into Warrior 2, Sky Archer, and back down into Side Angle, into our Lizard with all the options to stay high, melt into the forearms, or peel open to the side, melting the hips, and reaching for a bind! We stepped the foot back for a vinyasa flow to continue on the other 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 with the feet, forward folding and pressing the hands into the feet to feel the grounding energy from the earth. We let go, and formed fists gently pounding our way up the body, releasing tension in the calves, quads, hamstrings, hips, glutes, low back, abdomen, up the arms from the hand to the shoulder, ending in butterfly taps across the chest. If you hold tension here in the chest, this is a nice release! We moved up, massaging into the jaw, the perfect release for jaw clenchers like myself, massages into the temples, and then ending 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 finished with a crown massage! 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 a downward dog, we walked the hands to the feet for a forward fold, grew our Tree from the ground up, extending the arms like branches, flowing into our Half Lotus +padman mudra our lotus flower, lifting it up through the dark, murky water to the surface to find the light, flowing into our Eagle for a few crunches before melting into a cross-legged forward fold. We walked the hands forward, bringing our shin with us to melt into our pigeon! We unraveled into a 3 limb dog, bent the knee opened the hip, flipping our dog if desired!
🍃On the other side, after our dog was flipped, we walked the hands forward into our plank, and melted the heart and belly down to the earth, moving in pelvic rocks side to side, releasing the low back, the head resting on a pillow made of our hands. We lifted the knee toward the elbow for Half Frog, extending the arm long, threading the opposite through to roll to the back for a supine twist. We rolled to the belly for pelvic rocks, low cobra lifts, hovering the hands and feet, to move into half frog on the other side, rolled for a supine twist, then melted to the back. We inhaled out like a starfish, envisioned suction cups on the bottom of our arms & legs anchoring us to a rock as the tidal waves washed over us! We exhaled the limbs into a cow face, pulling the shins to the chest to lengthen through the IT bands & relieve sciatic nerve pain.
🌻 We then settled into our savasana! Together, we completed a full body cleanse! We found Dhyana, 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 “Dharana & Dhyana” class playlist here! 🙏🏻
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/19MnP3cjYjxHamcOfe9YRn?si=QmhrayUFTPiUZiFg7qSvaQ&pi=u-S8EiwV6ARp6H
🍃Come practice with me Mondays at 8:15am!🫶🏻 ✨🌿
