Nourishing and Calming

Hi welcome, we're here for pre-natal yoga sequence with Yohanna and Kristen, and our babies, and we are all in our third trimesters, but the sequence that we're about to do is good for any point during your pregnancy. It is a more of a calming and nourishing sequence, so the challenge won't be as much about holding poses as it will be about just moving very slowly and with your breath, using your breath. I like to do it at night, if I have time, before I go to bed, or if I'm feeling anxious about some of the difficulties of pregnancy and just tune in to the body and give myself and my baby some nourishment. So let's get started, just closing our eyes, coming in to our bodies, coming in to our breath. And wherever we are, it's perfectly okay if we feel like our mind is wandering.

We're just going to try to bring it into our bodies so we can start from a place of calm. We do that by slowing down the breath and tuning in to the breath. Just noticing how the quality of your breath affects the quality of your mind and vice versa. So slowing down the breath, we can slow down the thoughts. We can come into the deeper layers of the body just through the simplicity of breathing.

Connecting with baby through the breath. Maybe feeling your eyes soften, feeling your jaw get a little softer. Shoulders relaxing down from the ears. The front and the back of the neck softening up with every breath. Just notice how the breath touches other parts of the body, your diaphragm, your lungs.

And expanding into your belly, relaxing your baby, allowing your hips to fall open a little bit more, joints are softening, muscles relaxing, just feeling supported and grounded from the earth. Spine nice and long. We're going to try to maintain that quality of the breath throughout this sequence, just gentle, long, deep, and soft, nourishing every cell, every muscle, every part of our baby and every part of our body. And now, just as slowly as you need, start to open your eyes, and we're going to link some movement with the breath just by doing some shoulder rolls, just loosening up the upper back, bringing the shoulders forward, drawing them up by the ears on the inhale and releasing them back and down on the exhale, keeping the movement as slow as the breath. Then the next couple of shoulder rolls, seeing if you can increase your mobility a little bit in the shoulders, expanding in the heart center and in the lungs, feeling the spine lengthen a little bit.

Face is soft. Just releasing any tension as we come back and down. Just one more. Good, now we're going to bring it into the rest of the spine a little bit, just through some gentle Cat Cow. If you have your blanket, you can just remove it out behind you and slowly find your way on to hands and knees.

For us, we might have our knees a little wider than our hips and hands are just firmly grounded into the earth, and the base of the spine and the crown of the head are all one integrated piece here before we even start drawing the shoulders down and away from the ears, and we're just going to inhale and gentle little arch, opening through the sacrum and the heart, and exhale, drawing the tailbone and the crown of the head towards the earth, navel towards the spine, just saying hello to baby. Inhaling, keeping the breath really slow. And exhaling. Allowing the breath to lead the way. Inhale and then move, and feeling the breath move throughout the entire spine just like a wave moving through your body, opening it up, creating space in the vertebrae.

Good, just one more. And finding your way back in to neutral. And now we're just going to tuck our toes, getting a little stretch in the feet. We're just going to inhale, bring the body a little bit forward, exhale sitting back slightly onto the heels, just getting that stretch and opening in the feet, beautiful. Inhaling, lengthening out, feeling the breath caress your body, exhaling, relaxing.

Inhaling forward and exhaling, sitting back a little bit on the heels. And this time, just come back into neutral. We're going to stay with our toes tucked. Now we're going to work our way into Downward Dog if you're comfortable with Downward Dog. If your baby's in a position that might not be good for Down Dog, like if it's in breach and you've just turned baby or any other things going on with your personal journey here, then you may just go into this Cat pose.

Otherwise, on an inhale, you're just going to press into your feet, lift your pelvis up towards the sky. If you're in your third trimester, you can really open those legs as wide as you need to, and exhale, sink onto the heels. If you need to bend the knees, feel free. Really our goal here is to get the spine nice and long and straight and breathe into it. Feel the integration of every body part from your hands all the way through your feet, the back of the spine, your belly, your pelvis, shoulders, heart, neck, face, good.

Inhale, fill it up a little more. And exhale, now just sink back down onto those knees gently, good. And we're going to sit back into Child's Pose, so for us, Yohana and Kristen, we're going to open our knees really wide just to give space for the baby, and for you at home, if you feel like that's not necessary, if you're not at that point, then feel free to bring your knees closer together. If you feel like you need more support, you can use just a pillow or a bolster and place it between your heels and your sit bones and we're going to stay in Child's Pose for a few breaths, so really getting the most out of this pose. If you can, allow your forehead to connect to the earth, draw your shoulders back away from the ears.

Feel the flesh on your face really soft. Allow your shoulders to sink down towards the earth. Belly is soft. The pelvis and the hips are opening with every breath. Really giving your lower back a nice massage with the breath.

Feeling it touch every vertebrae, feeling any tension just melt away, drip off you, melt into the earth, become something else as you create space in your body to be nourished by the breath and the movement. And the next inhalation, we're just going to start to walk our way into a seated position, and you can walk your knees a little closer together if that feels right for you, just sitting in Hero pose, again you can use this bolster if you feel like there's any tightness in your joints. Otherwise, you can just sit on your heels like Yohana and Kristen, and we're just going to do a couple of pelvic tilts, so just inhale, expand through the shoulders and the heart. Exhale, release the back, the lower back. Just keeping a little space between the chin and the chest for the air to pass through the throat, inhale, opening, and exhale, releasing.

Just imagining how baby might feel right now with this nice rocking motion, releasing, really feeling yourself massage the lower back with the movement. See if you can add a little shoulder roll now, so opening and then drawing the shoulders forward on the way back, good, and good. Up by the ears, good, last time. One more, expanding through the lungs, and coming back. Good, and just coming back into a neutral position.

Just take a nice resting breath here, checking in with your body, checking in with your lower back, checking in with your breath, and then we're going to come all the way up on our knees, lifting our pelvis up, our hips off our knees, and you can remove the pillow or the bolster if you're using one, and we're just going to give ourselves some support by pressing our palms into our sacrum, and with that support, feel as if you're lifting your waist up towards the sky, using your hands and using your mind's eye. Lengthen out the spine and lean back, putting a little bit of weight into those arms, opening the heart. If you like, if it's too much on your neck, you can just look down at your sternum. Really we're just doing a nice upper back bend here, keeping the tailbone tucked in towards the earth. If you want to release your head back, you can release your head back here.

Drawing the shoulders together, elbows back behind you, good, and one last inhalation, expanding that heart up, and on the exhale, just start to come back into neutral and sit back on your heels. And releasing the hands, taking a nice relaxing breath. Staying with the breath and staying with the body, good. We're going to do some hip openers, so I'm just going to start with one leg in front, the other leg extending off of the hip, bending the knees quite a bit. If you feel like you have a lot of tightness in the hips, which a lot of us do, it can be really helpful to have a blanket or a bolster underneath for this.

And if you walk your front leg out, you're going to get more intensity in your hip opener. If you want a little bit less, just draw it in towards the body, and the same goes for this back leg. Just getting comfortable here, feeling your spine nice and long, and once you reach that place of comfort, you're just going to tilt your torso forward as you walk your hands out just a little bit in front of the hips, not too deep yet, good. Just hold it here for a breath, lengthening the spine out, lifting the sternum. If this is enough for you, you're just going to hold it here and breathe into those hips allowing them to open, using the breath to facilitate that opening, and if not, you can add a little body roll, so you're going to roll your shoulders like we've been doing, lift the sternum, and then just roll your back, vertebrae by vertebrae down until the crown releases, and just roll it back up, drawing the hands a little bit closer to the body on the way up.

And inhale, open through the lungs, through the heart, and exhale, releasing, just like there's a big wave drawing in through the base of your tailbone and moving through your abdomen, chest, and heart. Good, beautiful, and open inhaling, yes, exhaling. Feeling the hips open as you release the tension in the back, and coming back up. One more time, nice luscious deep breath, helping you release, creating space, allowing the hips to gently come open, and then just coming back into neutral, taking a deep breath, just noticing how your hips feel and your spine feels. We're going to take the leg that's behind us in the back and just extend it out to the side, and the front leg's going to draw in really close to the body, and walk the leg as far in front of you as you need to, or if you're feeling particularly flexible, you can have it out here, whatever's comfortable for you, comfortable and easy and that allows you to have a sense of grounded-ness and expansion at the same time, lengthening through the spine.

You may, if you need to, want to use a block because we're just going to inhale, again lifting the sternum, lengthening the spine, and on exhale, tilt your torso forward as much is comfortable for you. Good, beautiful, seeing if you can draw the shoulders back down away from the ears, making sure baby's nice and comfortable here. If that feels good for you, then you can start to release the head down to the earth, but if this is enough, just hold it here and feel the sense of grounded-ness in your sits bones and lengthen your spine. Breathing into all of those areas that are opening, expanding. Keeping the face nice and soft, nice and tender.

And in the next inhalation, just start to walk it back up, slowly lengthening the spine first and then bringing it back into seated, beautiful. And then we're just going to bend that extended leg, rotate this one out, and we're going to take it into the hip opener on the other side, so again just getting really comfortable, getting the support in place that you need, listening and tuning in to your own body, not taking it beyond right now, just getting in to that place of calm, good. Now when you get there, you can just walk your hands out, lengthen out through the spine, beautiful. Inhale, roll the shoulders open a little bit, and exhale, just roll the body down, even if it's just a slight movement, and then roll it back up. It's almost like you're tucking the base of your spine and then rolling it through the vertebrae, the movement and the breath simultaneously.

Inhale, release, and tuck and draw it back up. Two more times. Going inward. And last time. And coming back into your neutral position, just checking in, feeling the opening happening gently, and you're going to take this leg that's behind you and just extend it out.

We're going to do the same thing we did a minute ago, opening the hips gently, feeling this leg relax but active, the extended leg, beautiful, yeah. You can keep that leg closer to the center line if you need to or out like Yohana. Either way is perfectly fine. We're just going for length and openness here. So inhale, lift the sternum, lift the waist off of the pelvis, and exhale, start to lengthen the spine out and crown away from the tailbone, keeping the sits bones nice and grounded, just feeling how that feels to you right here.

If that's enough, you can just stay here, breathe into it, feel your hips, your groin, your spine, your neck and shoulders and baby all being caressed gently by the breath. If you want to go a little deeper, you can start to relax the head and neck and crown and forehead down towards the earth. Just a couple more breaths here. Really staying present with the breath. Feeling how it's affecting not only your body but your nervous system, and how that might translate to the experience your baby's having.

Good, and inhale, lengthen the spine back out, ground through the sits bones, and then just start to walk it back up, sitting right on top of the sits bones, good. And now, we're just going to come into a nice seated position, Easy. Bring our feet together. If you need to support your knees, right here you can just lift them up a little bit. We're going to inhale, just open the chest slightly.

Bring it forward, good, opening the heart, and exhale, just release it back. Just tilts, nice gentle tilts, and if you feel like you haven't put a blanket or a bolster under your sacrum and tailbone and you need to before we move on, feel free because sometimes you notice that it needs a little bit more support when you're doing these movements. And keeping the breath slow and deep, feeling the opening happening not only in your hips, but in your chest, your heart, your vertebrae. One last time. Good, releasing back, using the support of your hands if you need to, and then just coming back on top of the sits bones, we're going to bring one leg in front of the other into Easy pose, and getting nice and comfortable with the support of a blanket sometimes here doubling it up might help take the weight off.

Nice long spine, and we're just going to sway side to side, so you're going to lead with your ribs and your shoulders in one direction and then the ribs and shoulder the other, almost like you're making a figure eight from side to side, or an infinity sign, and if it feels good, when you're ready, you can release the neck, and if it feels good to close your eyes, close your eyes, just swaying side to side like there's a nice breeze blowing through your body. Heart and chest are opening, feeling the suppleness of your spine. Keeping that breath nice and nourishing and active flowing through the body. If you'd like to add a little neck roll, you can bring it to the front. Whatever feels good right now on your neck, on your shoulders, on your spine.

We're just going for fluidity and gentle opening, calming, giving ourselves a sense of peace and tranquility. The last couple sways, maybe just make them a little bit smaller. And as we start to bring ourselves back into neutral. Good, and just for the sake of symmetry, we're going to just switch legs and bring the other foot in front just for this last little closing sequence. Let's just bring one hand to baby, one hand to the heart, feeling the connection between the two and closing our eyes, and either just going deep into your body right now, feeling how it feels for you, or you could just use a nice visualization, imagine that you're seated under the bright light of the moon, a nice beautiful full moon.

Feeling her luminous light just shining down onto you, bathing you, feeling that moon just penetrate every cell and every muscle, reaching into your womb. Imagine the stars shimmering next to her. Nice gentle breeze caressing you, relaxing you. Maybe there's a big body of water in front of you and you can see the reflection of the moon, the reflection of the stars in the water, nice and still and calm. Just notice her beauty and her magic and notice your connection to that same beauty and magic and gentle strength.

Just giving you a sense of peace and calm and courage and ease. Good, last couple of breaths, just going into whatever place feels right for you these last couple breaths. And let's all just bring our hands together into our hearts, just bowing down for a breath. Being here together in this space. Thank you for this practice, thank you for sharing it with me, namaste.