Sahasrara 🕉️ Divinity Unveiled

🌳🌷 Hello Beautiful Friends!!

🕉️ Summer is flying by! Goodness!! Soak in these final few weeks before the school year and Autumn arrive! I read a quote recently that said, “I didn’t realize we were making memories, I just knew we were having fun.” ☀️The PERFECT summer quote right! 🌊Basking in the sun’s rays, water or sand in the toes, sunnies & wet hair, watermelons & strawberries, 🍉🍓and lots of fun! Summer can also be a bit chaotic, especially for caregivers! During this busy summer, remember to carve out time for YOU! This world is moving super fast, take the time to slow down, before your body & mind FORCE you to 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! 🌬️

🪻I have LOVED holding healing space for you every Friday in our gentle classes! I have cherished our time together, to intentionally slow down, both my mind, the pace of class, and really focus on the mental health & somatic lessons, breathwork, and intentional movements that I’m passionate about sharing with the world. This Friday, July 19, is my FINAL summer gentle class! If you’ve never experienced it, come see me! This Fall, my classes are changing a bit! To stay updated, you can join my Newsletter!
Click here!

https://mailchi.mp/a2a27d30fc28/the-light-poured-in-yoga-newsletter

💟This week we’re diving into the seventh chakra, our Sahasrara: the Crown chakra! This swirling energy center lies at the top of our head, and is violet in color! It is here where we find our understanding, devotion, spirituality, connection to divinity, and enlightenment!

🟪 Today, we opened on our backs, grounding the entire body, allowing the head to become heavy, discovering peace, relaxation throughout the length of the body from the crown to the toes, with one hand on the belly, the other on the crown of the head, on our Sahasrara!  We closed the eyes, and took a slow scan of the 5 senses, even with the eyes closed, noticing what we see beyond the lids, what we hear in the room, our own breath, what we smell, the lavender-rosewood-frankincense essential oil mist sprayed in studio, the last thing we tasted, a sip of coffee or bite of food, and the warm air against our skin, our mat underneath us, supporting us, holding us. We moved into our Pranayama practice, 3-part breath, deep inhales through the nose, filling up to the belly, allowing the belly to take up space, into the chest, expanding the ribs, filling the lungs, all the way to the crown, and then long, slow exhales through the mouth, releasing all our past events, and future to do lists, letting them wash away, no longer needed, becoming truly present! We took time just for ourselves, present in this space, in this moment. Nowhere else to be, nothing else to do, but simply be. We slowed down the chatter of the mind!  

💜We lengthened long, reaching the hands overhead, toes reaching forward, full body stretch, exhaled hugging the knees into the chest, rocking side to side massaging the low back, circling through the ankles, lengthened long again, forming a Crescent Moon to the right and to the left. We hugged the knees in, and melted them into a supine twist to the right, coming through center, lifting the hips into a bridge, and a supine twist to the left. The knees came through center, and we rock n rolled along the spine to a comfortable seat or half lotus pose, bringing one foot on top of the opposite thigh. We anchored the sit bones, lengthened the spine, and softened the shoulders. We formed our Sahasrara mudra, clasping the hands together and extending the pinkies to the sky, hovering at the heart. We inhaled, opened the hands to the back of the head, opening the chest, elbows extending out to the walls, .and exhaled curling inward, cradling the head, forearms meeting, dripping the chin, repeating 2 more times! We opened into twists to each side, a backbend to open the chest and walked the hands forward into a forward fold, tenting the fingers, finding a sway side to side. We moved into a child’s pose, walked the hands to the right, through center, to the left, through the center, joined the palms together, bending the elbows, reached the hands overhead, thumbs draping down the back of the neck.

🔮We melted the hands to the mat, walked the hands toward the knees, bringing the knees close together into our Hero’s pose, sitting onto the heels for our self-healing reiki practice!  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 soul, releasing everything we no longer need. We sent healing energy to the mind, quieting the chatter. The mind is 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 pain & frustrations, and future worries. We sent gratitude to the heart & lungs, set our intention, inhaled fingers to the sky, melting into side bends, and reaching the fingers to the sky, crossing one wrist over the other, inverting the hands, palms together reaching up to the sky, inhaling while gaze lifts, crown lengthening, opening the chest, exhaling palms forward, curling the back, repeating 2 more times. We released the hands behind the glutes into a backbend, and exhaled forward into our puppy, melting the heart, grounding our Sahasrara!

🎆We moved in yummy ways, with a yummy warm up flow of Cat-Cow, adding in organic movements, hips swaying side to side, child’s pose waves, listening to what the body needs! We could stay in Childs pose for the rest of class! If we needed more movement, we found a neutral spine, inhaled peeling the right toes to the back rocking into the toes, awakening the ankle, lifted the leg parallel to the mat, and crossed it over to the left side of our mat, gaze following over the left shoulder. We brought the right leg through center, planted the toes, as the opposite knee floated into the chest, curling the back, knee came down, bending into the elbows, as the right toes extended to the sky for a mini push up, repeating one more time, then extended the right leg out to the right, sinking the hips back, 1-leg Childs pose, rolled forward and then opened into a supported side plank. We moved through a cat cow flow and honored the left side! Super delish!! We opened our heart, chest & lungs, lengthened, extended, 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 into our downward dog, lifted high into the toes, rolled forward into plank, creating waves as slowly as possible, 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 moved through side bends, exhaled swan diving into a forward fold, planted the hands, stepped back into a plank, pranam or chaturanga, low cobra, upward dog, into downward dog, finding movement then stillness. We inhaled right leg to the sky, exhaled knee to tricep taps, to the chest, knee pushup with extended left toes, then planting left toes to back of our mat, coming up and stepping the right foot between the hands rising up into Crescent Warrior. We inhaled, cactused the arms, opened the chest, exhaled hands to the sky, reaching the crown to the heavens, and brought the hands together into our Sahasrara mudra, exhaled as the left knee tapped the earth, 3 times, and then stepped the back foot in, forming our Pyramid with our mudra, exhaling slowly folding forward, extending our mudra forward then to the earth, planted the hands, lifted the left toes into Standing Splits, floating into a Half Moon, and then planting the left toes to the back of our mat. We windmilled the arms into a Sky Archer, extending through the fingers, exhaling into an extended side angle, repeating 2 more times. We planted the left had inside the right foot, extended the right hand high into a Twisted Lunge, melted into a full Side Plank, brought the right forward, grounded the left knee and reached to hands high into a Low Lunge. We formed our mudra, and exhaled melting the hips back into a Quarter Split with our mudra. We inhaled forward, released the hands to walk to the long left side of our mat for a WideLeg Forward Fold. We allowed the head and shoulders to hang heavy, planted one hand in front of the nose, extended the other hand for a twist, honored the other side, and rolled up into a 5 point star, bent the knees into our Goddess. We floated into the right foot, into our tree, reaching our crown to the sky, melted through center, into our tree into the left foot, extending to the heavens, through center, melting forward into our WideLeg fold. We walked the hands to the back of our mat, reaching the hands into a Low Lunge + our mudra, and melted the hips back for a Quarter Split. We rolled forward into the hands for a vinyasa flow, meeting in downward dog. We walked the hands back to the feet, spun around to the top of our mat into a forward fold. We rolled up to Tadasana, and honored the left side! We encircled the healing space on our mats!

🍇Somatic experiencing gave us tools to regulate our nervous system, to stimulate the vagus nerve that begins at the base of the brain and runs throughout the body touching every organ system! We agitated emotions stuck in the body, to help them release, and to serve as a reset button. We began at the crown, massaging the fingertips all over the crown and behind the ears, into the temples, the jaw, the perfect release for jaw clenchers like myself. We pulled down on the ear lobes, pulled the middle of the ears out to the sides, up to the top of the ears pulling toward the sky. We brought one hand to the base of the skull, the other hand’s two fingers rolling down the forehead to the tip of the nose! We brushed our fingertips down the neck a few times, releasing tightness in the throat. 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 into our bee breath🐝! If you hold tension here in the chest, this is a nice release!  We squeezed into the shoulders, deltoids, biceps, triceps, and forearms, and then swiped the hands down the arms, middle body, and legs, brushing away everything still tethered to the body we no longer need! We came into stillness, then swayed right and left, and found stillness again, noticing the effects: we can feel cool, heat, or tingling sensations, even a spontaneous yawn! We removed anything stuck, anything harmful & toxic still attached to the body! We stimulated the vagus nerve, the super highway of information from the brain to the body! 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 adjust 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, We inhaled fingers to the sky, exhaled grounding the left foot as the right knee lifted, reaching the left hand to the right knee, right hand extended behind us into our Dancing Shiva! We care through center, reaching the right hand for the right foot, and melted the chest floated the right toes to the sky, into our Dancer. We came through center, released the right foot back into our Crescent Warrior, formed our mudra, tapped the earth with the right knee 3 times, stepped into our Pyramid, and folded forward with our mudra, we planted the hands, swept the left foot through center and up into a 3-limbed dog. We exhaled knee to chest, inhaled up bent the knee opened the hip, perhaps flipping our dog into Wild Thing. We came through center, thread the left foot under the right leg into a Fallen Star, right hand high, brought the left shin forward, and melted into our Pigeon. We could move into a King Pigeon or Mermaid before resting our pigeon. We floated into the hands, extended the left foot to the sky, into downward dog. We grounded the knees, flowing into our Dancing Camel, and melted the crown forward, curling the back, reaching for heels into our Rabbit.  We unraveled into a downward dog, stepped forward into a fold, to honor the left side!

 🪻Our cool down moved us from our pigeon, rolling onto the hip, brought the opposite leg around and stacked the knees into our Cowface. We inhaled cactusing the arms, then formed our mudra, reaching high then folding forward. We unraveled the legs into our Straddle, folded forward, inhaled knees in, and lifted into a Reverse Table, melting our crown toward the back wall. We melted the hips down, hugged the knees in, and honored the left side. After our Reverse table, we melted the hips down, brought the soles of the feet together into our Butterfly, found our peace fingers, hooked our big toes, and opened the legs into our Straddle, balancing on the root chakra. We floated backward along the spine, to the mat and opened into a Happy Baby. 

🦄We lengthened long, hugged the knees into the chest, extended the feet to the sky into our T-pose, crossed one foot over the other, bending at the knees, hugged the thighs together and reached for shins gently pulling the knees toward the chest. This lengthens the IT band, and helps to soften where the sciatic nerve travels, releasing any pain we may have there. We released our shins, planted the bottom foot for a supine twist! We honored the opposite side, lengthened into our Crescent Moon to the right and left, aand hugged the knees in, and opened into our Happy Baby, rocking side to side, and made time to come into any final poses we needed before our final rest, such as legs up the wall, bridge, plow or wheel, or coming into Savasana early! 

🙏🏻We made it to our PEAK POSE: Savasana! Together, we completed a full body cleanse! We found meditative peace, a calming of the mind, opened our Vishuddha, found insight into ourselves, found our voice, we experienced growth, fearlessness, release, and freedom. Yoga helps us shed what we no longer need, so we may see our most purest selves! We connect to divinity! To slow down means to heal! That is why savasana is the peak pose, the most important pose, the goal, the pinnacle. 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 creating our Sahasrara playlist! Listen here!! 

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1g8nd5jh6aYIrgQIWqYl2x?si=yV0KlGbOSVieF0oK0syOMA&pi=u-q5IIZgC3QLq5

🍃Come practice with me Mondays at 8:15am!🫶🏻 ✨🌿