Flowing into Balance

Hi, welcome to your practice. Today we're going to work towards shirshasana one which is the first variation of headstand. I like to call it the one, two combo and it's one of the shapes that although it can be challenging it's a very grounded and rooted shape that can create concentration for meditation. So we're going to start towards child's pose. Bend the knees and keep the knees relatively close together and the hands can come forward to start and head folds down.

And then you reach the hands back. We call this rabbit rolls. Right, so for some people it's going to be possible to hold onto the heels and stay there holding onto the heels if your leg-arm proportions are made that way. Right, for others as you start to lift the hips you'll roll onto the top of the head and for like me there's no way my hands are going to reach there if I want to actually get to the top of my head. And then release back and then you reach back for the heels.

And this is probably an inhale that rolls you up, then exhale that softens you back. So let's say we'll do two more like this and let's just sort of like greeting the crown chakra. Greeting the top of the head and this can even be considered your headstand practice. Okay, we're still getting a lot of those same qualities here. Then we land back into our child's pose.

We can bring our hands forward and then lift the hips and come on up to all fours. From here step one and then the other foot back into plank pose and spread out wide through the fingertips, press into the hands. You can always lower the knees down and take this here and we'll do the pelvis tilts again, these are these very tiny little tilts back and forth, trying to isolate just the pelvis movings. You can do this again with the knees down or you can do it with the knees lifted. All right, so the tiniest of baby little sit ups.

And say two more, pelvis forward, pelvis back. Lower the knees down, shift back child's pose. Round roll it forward to you're all the way down on the belly and come into our sphinx pose. So elbows underneath the shoulders, fingertips nice and wide. I like to start totally relaxed which is bone on bone, everything just stacking, muscles are relaxed and then we begin engagement all right?

So pressing down through the forearms, pulling with the fingers, lifting the gaze, finding the belly, finding the feet, and then if it's useful maybe elbows come up off the ground. Exhale soften the whole thing and from here I will interlace the fingers and starts are you know practice for starting to get some of these basic key points for our shirshasana later. So interlace fingers and you'll tuck the toes and come on in a forearm plank and breathe here nice and strong. Again, you can always lower knees down. Practice it here.

Another breath. We release the hands out but stay in your plank pose and then start to lift the hips and bend the knees, look forward, lift elbows up off the ground. Walk yourself back if you came off your mat and come into downward facing dog. From here you'll start to walk your feet towards your hands coming into uttanasana and forward fold. Shake the head out.

Yes, no. A few breaths here. From here I will start to round roll ourselves up, slowly working towards upward salute. Inhale when you get there, arms will come on up over head and then exhale, hands come to the heart. Starting in tree pose the root and collect through the left foot, draw your right knee in towards your chest.

And then you'll take the foot to the inside of the thigh if that's possible. You can always put it on the calf or the ankle, right, or even the toes and the floor. Breathe here, pressing the foot into the leg, the leg into the foot. They're like kissing right, and they both really like each other. Not trying to pull away.

Another breath here. Draw the knee in towards the chest, put the foot down and we'll switch other side, drawing the left knee in towards the chest here. Placing it on the thigh. Again, pressing together. Hands can be at the heart.

Another breath, can you really root down through that bottom foot, rise up through the crown of the head. Last breath. This side you draw that left knee in towards the chest, to bend into your standing leg and then step back nice and long here, high lunge. Reach the arms on up overhead. Inhale, breath here.

Hands come back to the heart, visiting our warrior three, verredrasana three, start to lean forward and lift up onto those back toes. You're barely there, tiny ballerina toes and then we press down to lift up, verredrasana three. This turns to our artenchindrassana, right fingertips start to move towards the ground. Woo, maybe that happens. Okay, and nice drawing bend into the knee to send it back.

Peaceful warrior, big inhale. Exhale, parallel the toes, straighten the legs, inhale, lift up. Exhale to fold, posserita. Then shaking the head on out. We'll take our hands out underneath our shoulders and this is triangle, triangle, triangle, triangle, triangle, triangle.

So what it's meant to do is start to incorporate a little bit of your own breath and freedom of movement and we move from right to left, right to left. Right and so it can be slower or quicker than I'm moving. And you visit each one and maybe they all look the same and maybe they start to look different each time you come over. So start in the right side, those right toes start to turn out right, hand finds ankle or floor or shin, left arm reaches on up. Then it folds back down moving through center.

Over towards the other side. Right and this is like really fluid, there's a lot of freedom here, you're allowing yourself to just move back and forth, collecting some breath and allowing it to be loose and free. Doesn't have to be anything super specific, have to worry about the perfect alignment. There's freedom in the body, natural movements. Come back, last time through, we visited three times and each time we moved back in towards possarita and then around back around towards our low lunge.

The right leg's forward. Press down through the belly, back through the heel, the gaze come forward to inhale, exhale, soften and straighten into that front leg as much as you do. Rebend into the knee, gaze comes forward, belly drops, exhale soften and straighten into the front leg. Last time, rebending to the knee. Gaze comes forward, exhale, soften, and straighten.

And take a moment here this wide posvarstasana, pyramid shape, wag the tail a little bit, shake the head. Soften the belly. We rebend into the knee, lower your back knee down, inhale, arms come on up, anjeneassana. Anjeney is named, ranjeynassana, is named after anjenassana who is the mother of Hunniman. I love the sitting, she just gives birth to hanumanasana.

Right so it's like this shape gives birth to the splits. And we'll start with prep. So we'll shift your hips back. Right you can keep the hips lifted, that front leg straight as you fold on over. You go to runners lunge.

You can also sit all the way back on the heel here too if that's comfortable. Either one works, a few breaths. Move back low lunge. Step on back, plank pose, all the way down towards the belly. So again we come back into our sphinx.

Elbows underneath the shoulders, boost myself back so I end up on my mat. And so pressing down, finding your sphinx pose, lifting the gaze, gauge through the legs and gauge through the hands. And then again you can lift the elbows. Lower down here. Check out your hands, right, check out your forearms, lift you hips, you're in forearm plank with it wide.

A little bit harder. And we change this to a forearm dog, walk your feet in, bend your knees, look where you're going, use your legs to press you forward. Lift the elbows up, chattaranga. Upward facing dog and then down dog and we'll walk the hands back if you got off the mat a little bit. Breathe here.

Start to take your feet towards your hands and step or hop, walk, uttanasana, forward fold. And rise on up. Upward salute. Exhale, hands come to the heart. Okay, so do that again other side.

We're going to start collect our energy into our right foot, left knee rises on up. And take tree pose. Right this time let's play a little bit so let your arms move. Right, make pretty designs, doesn't matter, doesn't have to be what I'm doing. Right, make it up.

Do different things on different days, what do you need here? What do you want to express? Hands come back to the heart eventually drawing that knee in towards the chest and then putting it down. Then we switch sides. Right knee comes on up, taking the foot, phy, and again phy needs some expression here.

Releasing out, again any movement and it'll all be good, making it up, doing a little dance. Exploring the space around you, making it yours. So creative energy. We bring the hands to our heart and again on this side we're stepping back so the knee comes towards the chest, all the way back, high lunge, arms come on up. Breath here.

Hands come back to the heart, collect the energy in towards that front foot, lean forward, right and then come up onto the tippy toes of the back foot, press down, lift up. To open on out, artenshandrassana half moon, left fingertips can find the ground, right hand reaches on up. Bending into the knee, sending it long back behind you, big peaceful warrior. Paralleling the toes, straighten both legs, inhale to reach. Exhale to fold.

Take a few moments here. So this side it'll be side angle, side angle, side angle, side angle, side angle, side angle right? So last time was triangle, triangle, triangle, side angle, side angle, side angle, side angle. Same idea thought right, allowing a little bit of freedom here, start on the left side, those left toes turn out. Again I like to practice with the elbow and the knee so it feels most expansive and useful.

Right and then when you're ready you move on over. And with time you just get used to playing a little bit. Timing this freedom of movement. Having it not be so stagnant. Understand like pose, like oh soft.

What's happening? And there's three times to each side so slower, quicker is fine. Come back around that left side. One last time to the right and again maybe each one's exactly the same or maybe they change. Last time you're on the right side you come back, possarita, inhale and then exhale full in top end.

We'll take our hands out underneath the shoulders, walk around towards the left, find your low lunge. With your breath soft in the belly, gaze forward, inhale, exhale straightening and fold. Inhale, rebending to the knee, gaze is forward, belly drops down, exhale, we're straining into the front leg and folding. Last time inhale, exhale, fold. Breathe here a few moments and same idea just this freedom.

What happens when I lean that way, what happens when I lean this way, what happens when I shake my head? Okay, where are you feeling it more or less? That work for you? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Right, being okay with all the answers.

Next time you inhale you rebend into the knee, exhale, lowers the back knee down, inhale, arms come on up, in anjenyassana, mother pose. Hands come on down ottoman prep, shifting the hips back, fold here, right or again if it feels useful sitting on the heel and folding here. And a few breaths here and this is still like a place where you can sort of explore right again, inside line, outside line, both. Last few breaths, start to shift it back forward, low lunge, step on back downward facing dog. Again moving forward plank pose to lower all the way down to the belly.

Take our sphinx pose and press down through the elbows. Use the feet, use the hands, lift up. This turns to a forearm plank, like a forearm monkey dog, nice bend into the knees like an arrow taking off, right, so that forward motion with the leg length so it helps to lift the elbows up off the ground. And come in to chattaranga and then upward facing dog and then moving back downward facing dog. Okay, and starting to take the feet forward, coming to the front of your space here.

Folding on over. Rising up, inhale, exhale, hands come to the heart. So we'll start to move into our second sequence. We're going to take tree pose and the reason why this is included is because shirshasana one doesn't necessarily like it requires a lot but then at the same time a lot of it is concentration. The focus, like if you've got the body parts and the length in the hamstrings and the arms, but then you can get there and so we're practicing that sense of concentration like here in tree pose, a pose that's really accessible to a lot of us.

So we're like up the ante by closing our eyes which is fun right? So we'll just do it on one side to start because we'll come back around. You're going to root in ground through your right leg and take your left knee up towards your chest. So maybe for this one right you might bring your foot to the ankle to start because this can be tricky. Right, otherwise if you'd like to you can bring it to where you normally bring it, it can be the calf or the thigh and again, the feet and the leg, they're kissing.

Okay, they create a seal here and the closing of the eyes could just be like a split second, just oh, they close and then they open, close and then they open. Right, pressing the hands together. Re-firming that center line. Or if you're wanting to explore, see how long you can close the eyes. All of the sudden it's like whoa.

I got to be in this body. I got to be in this body right? Fully here. It's a fun practice, even like things that seem like even just standing sometimes, right, all the energy has to be back into the body. Okay, so if you haven't already, open up your eyes.

Draw that left knee in towards the chest and then step back nice and long high lunge. Inhale, both arms come on up. Exhale, hands to the heart. Lean forward, here warrior three. To standing splits, right, here we just keep the hands on the ground, lifting up that back leg and then turn this into artenchandrasana so your right fingertips can walk out, left arm lifts up.

Option here maybe taking a hold of that top foot, that's useful. Move peaceful warrior, release it on down. Big inhale. Parallel the toes, reach the arms on up, back seal to fold. Hands come out underneath the shoulders here.

Left hand down, right arm rises on up and then let's take that top arm to the lower back with a palm up, it might just stay just like that or might start to reach around, potentially find the thigh. Allowing the pelvis to move with the twist. Release that out, if you need a little wiggle wiggle, do it and then when you're ready you move other side. Right hand down, left arm high. Palm towards the lower back.

The palm up, right, that can be enough or you start to move it towards the hip. Breathe here. Release this, wiggle wiggle, take a second and then we walk back around here. Belly drops, gaze is forward, inhale, exhale, fold. Re-bend into the knee, lower the back knee down, release that toe, inhale, both arms come on up.

Anjeneyasana. So hands come to the heart and here we're going to take hanumanasana or you're going to take hanumanasana preps. So the hanuman preps is what we were doing all ready is here right or here. And folding, forgot to say this in the beginning but you can use blocks here and I've got some right that I'm going to use for my hanumanasana. If you're going to go for that, right, so we're here anjeneyasana and you can do the prep.

Right, or we're here, right and I like to keep this upright spine, so this beautiful story of hanuman, he's like remembering his divine nature, right, he's like this moment where he's like I'd forgotten how awesome sauce I was and now I remembered and he like leaps across an ocean, like so he's not like ew, he's like yeah man, right so it's like keep the heart lifted because you just like remembered what a rock star you are right, and then you start to move that front leg forward and it could be bent, right, it could stay here, like oh, nice and deep, right or you start to move it a little farther forward. So my theory is that the back hip's allowed to turn out, right, not crazy but a little bit. You might oh, I can lower it down a little bit here. Right and then this is fun, get a block underneath that front hip, I'm leaping across the ocean of awesomeness and here I am. Interlace the fingers is just beautiful shape.

Right and only gets better with practice. Oh, 10 years ago if you tell me to do hanumanasana I'd be like oh you got to be kidding me. Now I'm like okay I'll do it. So we move our blocks out of the way so you can accurately come back, right, which can be a little, or you might try bringing the hands inside and move the foot out towards the edge, tuck the back toe, lift the back knee, hips are high and then all you have to do is step back right, and there's your vinyasa. We're in downward facing dog.

Okay, so here it is. Opportunity number one to take shirshasana one. And I really encourage you not to use a wall so that you, fear is like this great thing it likes stop you from doing it before you're ready, right otherwise we have this wall and we like fling ourselves against it. It's like old school classical stories like would you give crutches to a child to learn to walk? So why do we give ourselves a wall, but otherwise if you want to use a wall, that's awesome too.

You can just try and stop still within the range of your body's practice for today. So we start in this position, we already did this in the beginning, forearms are down, we measure, right, that body and pinky edge tucks in and creating this seal here. So one of the things that like I think is really interesting about shirshasana is arm length and for those of us that your humerus is a certain length in comparison to your neck and your head it's going to be way easier and for those of us where it's shorter it's going to be way harder and then for people where it's really long, their head like never really fully touches the ground. So depending on how long this is, you can kind of see that like for me it's short so which means that I have to really do this to engage there and it's just something to note for yourself because you need that elbow line, right? So if this is short for you it's going to be really, really strong engagement, if this is long for you it's not as much.

So we interlace our fingers, the head comes down, and work around any ponytails or hair buns right? And then you tuck the toes and we lift ourselves up and because of my short humerus bones, right, I've never been able to just hoover because I can't get that kind of range, but here I can press down through my elbows, that standing splits kind of motion and start to work and then this is like darmonmitra, right? It's like oh the lazy man's head stand. Where one leg kind of balances the other. When I was pregnant this was like my head stand variation, I just like laid here, no ab work, just like laying in my head stand practice.

Then we can straighten the legs and they start to get engaged. We work our way up really squeezing through the hands. Really breathing, focusing. A few breaths then when you're like I'm cooked, start to let one leg lower and then the other. We take child's pose, for a breath or two and then I like to come up to rock pose so that you can start to connect what it feels like, we're bringing it back to our natural orientation to the ground.

We've stimulated the crown chakra. And this is like that one two combo. Noticing the echo, the vibration of that asana, of that posture. Where is it moving you? What does it bring up?

What does it start to stir and lift? You sit in this space, right, allowing yourself just to feel. And it changes day by day. Open the eyes, we have to do that whole thing on the other side. So come back into downward facing dog.

And take a second here and then you'll start to walk your feet towards your hands, forward fold, shake the head out, and then rise on up. Upward salute, exhale, hands to the heart. Okay, so coming onto the other side. This time we will root through our left foot, we draw our right knee in towards our chest and then again right, so we're coming into our tree pose with the eyes closed, so just like prep for that kind of concentration that we need, so you might start at the ankle, you might bring it to the calf, you might go to the thigh, right and I just like, I love this practice because over the years as I've done this with closing my eyes, you get better, surprise surprise. Right, so you might just again start off as just a blink, just a blink, what does that feel like.

Okay and we start to really engage the center line, really reaching down through the foot, up through the crown of the head and then maybe we can close our eyes for a few seconds. What does that feel like? Whoa, and just notice. But it's okay to open them, you don't have to do like anything crazy. It's just starting to play.

Concentration in the body. And we'll draw the knee in towards our chest. Find the inhale and the exhale, send it back nice and long, finding the high lunge. Inhaling, both arms come on up. Exhale, hands come to the heart, so we have to lean a little bit forward here and then press down to lift up for your vindrasana three, warrior three.

This turns into our standing split so we fold down, we lift up, it's just a moment here and then left fingertips stay down, right hand reaches on up, and again you can stay just like this or if it's useful you might grab the knee and I like to pull it in towards my chest a little bit to get it because that's what I need. Right, otherwise you can just bend it and grab the foot, that works to in this bow variation. Release the back foot, peaceful warrior, rise on up, parallel the toes, lift the arms straight legs. Belly, heart open to fold on down, possarita. Wag the tail a little bit, shake the head out.

So for this time with our twist you walk the fingertips a little bit forward, your right hand is going to find your left leg, fingertips on the outside and you can bend into that left knee and then left hand walks forward and as you start to pull yourself under you might straighten the leg. We release, come back through center. Left hand, fingertips on the outside. Right leg again, right knee can bend, walk the right hand forward and again as you start to pull yourself under, that's when you straighten. And it doesn't have to, it can stay bent right?

Lift on up, and walk back around towards the front. Soften the belly, gaze comes forward, exhale, full porstanasa. Re-bend into the knee, lower the back knee down, release the back toe, inhale, both arms come on up. So again here we're deciding, we're doing hanuman prep, right, shifting the hips back, folding, sitting on the heel. Right, or we're grabbing our blocks and again starting on that tall setting, right lifting the chest.

Big and expansive, and like you can see hanuman from this shape, it's like anjeneyasana it's like birth pose, my leg just comes out, right, leaping out from it. Just like for the mamas and we start to walk that foot forward and again you can stay with it bent, right just be there, you start to slide it forward. And two sides are different, left side is not my favorite. Should joke it's like my demo side, right. And then again maybe goes underneath the hips, arms come on up.

It's like freedom. Yay, hanuman. Jai, as he leaps across the ocean and saves Cita. So, you move your blocks out of the way here, hands go inside, move that front foot out towards the corner and then tuck the back toe, lift the back knee, hips are high, right, and then vroom, boop, chataranga, upward facing dog and downward facing dog. We lower the knees on down and sit back here, rock pose.

So we're going to come into our second attempt of shirshasana one and from here we're going to add that from the one two combo of nonnishona and I wanted to talk about it now so that we can just like practice it together because that combination of going from like really steady concentration, stimulation of this crown chakra, right this chakra that's connected, the portal from us in this body to divine, right, so we're stimulating that, right, and then we come back and then we're balancing the two sides of our body with nonnishona which is a breath which is proniama breath and I'll lead you through it. I just wanted to say that piece so that we could do it a little bit more of a practice together. So again you can still do this from a place of like pausing at any of these points. You don't have to go all the way up and if you like love head stand more than anything you want to stay up longer, you can also do it that way too. Right, so again, we're interlacing fingers and we're coming down and taking a little measure of your elbows at the bottom, pinky tucks under, head comes down, tuck the toes, walk the feet in, engage through elbow line, lifting up one leg.

Maybe finding your shirshasana. And take a few breaths here. What are you concentrating on? Can you find your breath? There's no worrying, it's all here in the body.

When you're ready you start to make your way on down. You land in child's pose just for a moment so you don't come up too abruptly and take a second. From here rise on up coming to your rock pose. And flip around and face you so let's see what we're doing and the hands can rest on the lap. And whichever is your dominant hand, right, you'll take the first two fingers in, right, and your thumb and ring finger's what's going to touch either nostril, so yogi, hang loose.

It's the thumb ring finger and you're going to rest those on the nostrils and just breathing here naturally in and out through the nose. Again, you can let the eyes be open, you can also close them. If there's a mudra that you'd like to take with your other hand, kiana or anything else feel free. You can also just rest on the lap. You'll breathe in nice and deep through both, exhale out through both sides.

Close the right, inhale left. Switching sides, exhale right. Inhale right. Closing right, open left, exhale left. So it's one cycle, inhale left.

Switch, exhale right. Inhale right. Switch, exhale left. Inhale left. Switch, exhale right.

Inhale right. Switch, exhale left. That's three, we're doing three more. Inhale left. Switch, exhale right.

Inhale right. Switch, exhale left. Inhale left. Switch, exhale right. Inhale right.

Switch, exhale left. Last one. Switch, exhale right. Inhale. Switch, exhale left.

Release the hands down, relax them both. Find a few breaths in and out through the nose. Again, checking in how it feels. Right, what is the quality, what is the vibration? This one two combo.

Where are you feeling it echo in your body? Next breath or so you can always stay here longer, you'll open your eyes when you're ready and we grab a blanket for this set. And I like to fold the blanket so that it's a little bit higher so that it has a little bit of a lift up and it lifts the pelvis up. We'll start atikinasana with bottoms of the feet together here and with this lift if we sit back on it it's not as useful, right versus if we come forward and we allow our pelvis to start to fall off of it a little bit, it tilts the pelvis in this other direction. And particular if these kinds of postures are difficult for you and you have that kind of rounded back, finding that lift really helps and even going as high as putting you know two blankets or a block, right, underneath the pelvis can make a big difference and so I like to just massage out the feet and give them the toes, give them a little love, you might as well, you're like here.

You know, what else are you going to do? Give some of those inside arches some love. Right, this always feels really good for me so I do this a lot, I just kind of crank of my feet a little bit, right, and then you can press down on one side, press down on the other side and then when you're ready wrapping the hands around the toes, right. Pulling the chest forward and then coming down and if it happens, right for some of us it's not going to happen, for some of us it will definitely happen, right the elbows might meet the leg and you can use the two and encourage them which is just like extra fun. You fold on in.

This nice opening through the inside leg, right and it's long spine but at the very end you can just let the softness come in because we're being sweet here. Rise on up. So you'll keep the left one in, take the right one over here, right hand down, left arm high, reach and take a little twist here. So wrapping the elbow around is fine, maybe it comes past, awesome. The only thing is this back arm here is like a stake in the ground, lifting up the center column of the spine, that's like the center of the tent.

Right, so that back arm if it's not engaged with the floor like the tent can't stand up straight so like you're spining that center column right, really pressing down through that back hand to lift and twist. And then we release here and we'll go straight to the other side, right? And so this time left leg's on top, right arm reaches so there's length and then taking the twist. Again, back hand's there for support of the spine, pressing down. Breathe here, like a pretty mudra is always nice.

Connecting. Lines of energy here. Release and we'll come into ubavishda kanasana, so here's bottom kanasana with the bottoms of the feet together, the same principles apply here. So you can start by scooting the seat back and then take one and both feet out, and I would notice it's like oh, oh, and sometimes a shape is like that right where I'm just like the sad person who's like I can't it's so far away, so what can we do to help ourselves? So you know, bringing ourselves a little bit farther forward so that we can help tilt the pelvis.

Okay, that's maybe a little bit better, and the other thing that is actually used is bending the knees here. So like this right, engaged, trying to bring the chest through and closer to the thighs is more useful then just like here. So right, if you're here, bend your knees, like forget about the hamstrings for a while and just work the fold in the pelvis. Otherwise when you're ready you start to straighten out the legs here and then I like to think of this, apparently I really like massages, so, right like totally I don't get them enough. So I like to think of everything as like an opportunity to give myself this little massage so the massage service doesn't go hai-ya, right, otherwise it would be crazy, right, so you're just like sweetly go in.

Right, sweetly just work ourselves a little bit lower, a little bit lower and then you pause and you feel into it and you're like oh, what's there? Right and then maybe with a little bit more breath and time, pose slowly goes a little bit more, a little bit more and we pause and this might be it right? This might be the edge and that's okay. Wherever that edge was, wherever that was, you breathe and you hold into it. Maybe you got more space, it comes a little bit lower.

Right and every day's like a little bit different. Sometimes it's just like, oh, just what I need, slides right in. And other days it's like no, right here is good. So wherever you land, kind of your edge for the day, allow there to be just this little pulse of breath. So the inhale you exit, move away from the edge and the exhale you move a little bit closer to it.

The inhale you move away from the edge and the exhale you greet it again. There's always kind of playing. When we're ready, we slowly start to walk our fingertips back up. Take the hands underneath the knees here. Wrap the hands around, give yourself a nice little hug and squeeze on in.

Nice squeeze. Slowly come on down onto our back. And so since we have the blanket we might as well use it, I mean why not? Right, so you can unfold it and then you can roll up this bottom edge, right and once you get down there it might be more or less. Stay rolled.

And it supports the neck. Right so you get there and you're like oh yeah, right, and you find this nice like comfortable and the head gets to go a little bit farther back but there's nice roll here to support the neck and then the legs can come on out. Arms release out to the side. Remember just letting some space happen between the body and the arms, space between the feet, letting the toes turn out. Eyes can close.

We start to listen in to the breath. As we take all of that hard work and that concentration, all of the drawing in towards the body. And we use it here to surrender to softness, to surrender into this moment. Eventually letting go into silence. And so you can feel free to stay here as long as you like.

Otherwise with a few deeper inhales and exhales. And start to come on back to your body and the space around you. Gently starting to bend the knees, planting the feet on the floor and I'm going to let the whole thing shift on over to the right and you just pause here and the blanket supports the head it's nice and sweet. Slowly press on up towards the seat. And bring your blanket underneath you for support under the hips.

Bring the hands to the heart, bow the head on in. Taking a moment, recognizing your effort. Gratitude to the body and reverence to the heart. Maybe receptive to grace. Thank you for sharing your practice.

Namaste.