Relief for Feet and Ankles

Hi, again! In this practice we're working with the feet and the ankles. And getting a little extra juice into the calves which can release the ankles and the feet as well as the knees. It's very yummy! To start with I'd like you to let your gaze get very soft. Not be looking around the room at all. Let your gaze go down towards the floor a little bit if you like.

And just let your awareness glide down your body all the way into your feet. And feel how you're bearing your weight. If you've been standing with most of your weight on one leg, bring your weight to be as equal left and right as you can. Do you have more sensation on the toes of the left foot than the right, vice versa? More sensation of weight in the heels than the front half of the foot?

One or both the same? Sense of ground supporting you? Sensation in the arches or any other place in the foot? And notice how when your mind goes down into your feet there's often a sense of quieting. Beautiful, now from that place of quieting and making some mental notes.

They might not even be in English. (giggles) They might just be in the language of feeling. Which is a very good language to start to learn of how your feet feel. Now we're gonna come down to the floor and let's use the chair. So you can bend your knees and as the chair becomes available to your hands and arms you just step one foot down onto the knees and the other and you're there.

So from here we're going to come down and lie down on the floor. So as you lie back, you can move the chair just a little bit away. Then lying back and it's helpful to use your forearms to get you down this far. And then you can walk the elbows out or toward your hips and lie down the rest of the way. Just give yourself some support on the way down.

And then we're going to write a little love letter to the feet with the feet. (chuckles) You're gonna lift one leg up from this position and you can keep it resting on the knee of the other leg if you like. But you can also lift the leg up and maybe hold the leg with your hands. So the love letter is very brief. It is air writing.

Writing in the air. And it is, I love my feet. So capital I Love, L-O-V-E. I love, and you can make the movements as small or big as you like. But I think big is helpful, My, M- Go back, Y- You can make it cursive if you like.

And then feet, F-E-E- two Es in feet. And cross the T. I love my feet. How about a couple of exclamation points? Straight line, dot beneath.

Bring your foot down. And feel into everything from your hip to your knee down into your ankle and your feet. Lots and lots of energy moving through there. So let's bring the other leg up. Again, you can rest your calf on your other knee or bring it up.

I kind of like to hold the leg a little bit when I do this. So same love letter, but of course, you're welcome to change the love letter around a little bit. I-, I'm going to change it up. I'm going to change it to adore. A-D- (chuckles) O-R-E.

So tracing the letters, they can be cursive. They can be block letters. They can be some caps, some small. However you want to do it. But you can feel all of the different movements of pointing and flexing and circling as you do it.

And you're sending yourself a nice love letter as you do it. Placing the foot down again feeling into how the feet feel. And then sometimes you might like to do a second love letter on each side again. We're gonna let it go at that. Now I'm gonna use the bolster under my pelvis for the next piece.

So, it's right here. I don't even have to get up. Lifting the pelvis up sliding the bolster under Make sure that it's a little bit under your lower back as well as under your hips and your sacrum. And then bringing both feet up just hug the knees into your chest. And one leg is not gonna be doing anything except hanging out.

And you can decide where that leg goes. Maybe partway through this exercise you'll put that foot down on the floor. Maybe you'll like having it up into your chest. I really like having it up into my chest because it gives that nice rounded feeling to my back. And now we're gonna do some more ankle and circles and so on And you're gonna hold on Let's start down here by the ankle on this one.

So the knee is hugging up really close to the chest. You might have to hold the foot up like this. Maybe the knee doesn't wanna be folded all the way down. So you can hold your foot up a little. You're kind of squeezing the calf tissue, calf muscle as you circle your foot a few times in one direction.

And then circle a few times in the other. And then move your hands up to maybe a third of the way up the calf. Circle your feet around. Oh yeah, let's do some pointing and flexing, too! Move your hands up. Oh, this is a great spot.

Oh, it was just waiting for me to get here. Circle (chuckles), circle in the opposite direction. Point and flex. Maybe take a brief break. Ah man, that's wonderful.

Exhale, inhale, smooth breathing. Smooth circling, pointing and flexing. And then you can kind of walk your way down again to the ankle area and then put both feet back on the floor again. Tune in to the sensations in your leg and your feet and your ankles. The two sides, I experienced quite a bit of difference here.

So one of the things that happens when there's maybe some stiffness in the ankles or the knees, I'm starting on the second side. I'm gonna leave this bottom leg down this time. And hugging up, circling and same kind of activity. And as you're doing this circling and working the squeezing of the hands up your leg, don't forget to do some point and flexes. Why the calves like this some much is that the connective tissue fascial wrapping that goes around the musculature as well as the muscles themselves can get very tight when there's some swelling and joint pain.

Because they're trying, they're just gripping to try to protect the joints. And when you can release these muscles as well as lubricating the joints of the ankle and foot, things start to feel, get better. So that's probably plenty on that side. Put the foot down. And again feel into how nice that is, wow.

Nice deep breath. (exhales loudly) Yeah. Okay, so we're gonna move the bolster out from the side. And I'm just putting it back towards the wall, 'cause you're not going to need it again. And rolling over to the side and once again letting the knee come up towards the chest a bit.

Using the free arm to push up, stretch the leg out. (exhales calmly) Okay, and to come up we'll use the chair again. So turning around to where the chair is accessible, both hands on the chair getting close enough so that you have lots of great support on the chair. One foot comes forward, your choice whichever one, push down on the chair so that you can bring the other foot forward. And up you come.

Okay, and then here you are once again standing on both feet. Right in your center, feeling into your feet and legs. You can't help but notice that it wasn't just the feet. The feet and the legs, I feel it all the way up into my spine and shoulders. So we carry the weight of our body on the hips, the knees, the ankles, and the shoulders.

And that practice is primarily the lower low joints from the hips down. Just feel into that different awareness. Sweet, thank you.