Harnessing Your Power

(water splashing) Welcome. Today's practice is really about harnessing our power, and going inside and trying to find an internal sense of stability, strength and groundedness. Oftentimes, especially with trauma, we can feel really overwhelmed by emotions, where you go from zero to 60 in like a minute, and it becomes, not just anger, but rage. That power, that energy, is so important and so powerful, but we wanna make sure that it's tolerable and able to be contained within you. So that's where we're goin' today.

When you feel ready, we're gonna come standing if you're not already, and find yourself into a comfortable position, meaning, take your feet a little wider, bend the knees just a little bit, and see if you can be upright. You are welcome to close the eyes, or leave them open. We're gonna take a moment to just orient to the surroundings. I'm sure you've been in where you are for a little while now, but now start to notice the details. Turning your head, your neck, your shoulders.

Maybe colors you haven't noticed before. Mm hmm. Great, and when you really feel like you've taken in the room, come back to your center. Consider placing one hand on your belly and one hand on your heart. Now, either let the eyes close or keep them open, but pay attention from the top of your head down through your feet.

How's your body? What feels tight? Or warm? Loose. Spacious.

Ready to go. And then just shifting in that kinda no-big-deal kind of a way, non-judgement way, shift to your mind, and notice how your mind is right now. Is it running fast, or slow. Does it feel really murky, or clear, or some place in between. And again, you don't have to change anything, you don't have to fix anything, just notice where you're actually starting from.

And then shift the awareness to the heart body, your emotions, and just see if anything in particular is up. Are you noticing any anger, or frustration, or irritability. Or is something particularly sweet today. You just wanna connect to more energy. Or is it just kind of a neutral day?

Just noticing where you're at, and again, you don't have to fix or change anything, it's about expanding our capacity to tolerate where we are. Good. If it's comfortable for you, take a deep breath in. And just let it out. (loudly exhaling) Now, try to sense the feet, so you might have to bend your knees in order to get into 'em.

We're gonna work with the hands to begin with, so just open and close your hands, right. And you might make a conscious fist, and make it really tight, and then release the fist, and then do that again, really make it consciously tight, and release it, good. And then roll the wrist, roll the wrist. With a lot of energy in the system, we can get tension in the joints, so opposite direction. This is kind of just loosening the joints to allow the circulation to increase, and then as if you're stirring a big pot, there you go.

As if you're stirring a big pot. Now bring the fingers to the shoulders, and be mindful of what your shoulder girdle can handle, so if making really big circles feels bad, don't do it. Take care of yourself, yeah. Maybe smaller circles. Right, two, and let's do one more, three.

And let's go in the opposite direction, so the shoulders go back, almost the shoulder blades, it's like the wings of the arms, will pull towards each other. There you go, and then the elbows go up and around. And one more. Yeah, and then release the arms, and we're gonna take them into circles, again, you decide how big, how small, how fast, how slow these circles go. If I'm goin' too slow, you go a little faster, and vice versa.

See if you can connect this breath and the movement. One more cycle. (loudly exhaling) Good, and we're gonna take the circles in the opposite direction, I almost imagine, especially with the water behind me, that it's like a wave coming up, and forward in the spine. That's it, up and forward. You might also notice that I'm doing a lot of exhales through the mouth, one of the things that can support, is releasing in the jaw.

So now come on back to the middle and see if you can squeeze everything, consciously take your body into tension, shoulders to the ears, squeeze the legs, the face, the butt, the stomach, the arms, and then consciously release. (loudly exhaling) Yeah, and see what reaction the system has. Right now I'm feeling tingling, my heart was palpitating a little bit and now it's starting to slow, I feel a sense of expansion and warmth, and my belly just opened. Notice if any of that is true for you, it may or may not be. But when the tingling, or that energy if you're feeling it, starts to settle, alright, then you're gonna go into the next one.

If there's still a lot of energy there, pause, just press pause on the screen, until it starts to settle more. But, if it has, let's go into chair pose. So we're gonna sit back, I'm gonna turn to the side so you can see the hips go back, yeah? Not forward, I just wanna make sure the knees are protected. So, we'll send the hips back so more weight is in the heels, and kinda come down into the thighs, and then as you come up, it's a slow motion stand.

Yep, push into the earth and then feel every single fiber of the thighs lift. Great, let's do that again. So you go down, really get into the quads and the glutes, I mean, your quads are the largest muscle of fight and flight in the body, so if you've got a lot of energy there, let's see if we can mobilize the energy through the legs, push down and start to, lengthen up. Good, let's add the arms. Inhale, sitting back into your chair, and the exhale the arms will just swim down.

See if you can breathe the arms up, and I know we're holding this a little bit, good, open take an exhale, push into the earth, lift all the way up. Feel any sort of heat or life as you lower. One more time, inhale into your chair, exhale release the arms, just swim them back, so we're finding, hopefully, a sense of stability, and strength maybe, in the lower body, and a sense of fluidity and ease above. Come on, all the way up, And then release. (loudly exhaling) Check out from your navel down, how that current's running.

Bubbling, tingling, electrical. Fiery, calming, smooth, any of those. Again, when the heart rate starts to settle, that's the time to move into the next one, so we're giving a little extra time than maybe a usual regular, like studio yoga practice would be, just so we can really sense your inner experience. The next one is the sumo step. If you've seen sumo wrestlers, think about the stance where they get nice and low, and the legs come pretty wide.

Now also bring to mind an image of moving through water. Deep kind of thick water, kinda sludge, alright? So we're gonna shift the weight over to the left leg, try to pick up the right leg like slow motion style, lift lift lift, and then down. (goofily giggling) Okay, let's do that again. Inhale, shift to the other side, lift lift lift, like you're going through sludge, and then, hah! Feel free to use that sound.

Inhale, letting some of the energy out through sound actually helps open up the guts, hah! (loudly exhaling) One more time. (loudly inhaling) Hah! (loudly exhaling) And then last one. (loudly inhaling) Slow slow slow slow slow, as if you're pushing through the sludge, and down. Hold here, hold here. Upright the spine if possible so you can feel the support and the strength, and then come on all the way up.

(loudly exhaling) (loudly breathing) Two or three breaths to notice. Are you feeling more outside of yourself and activated, or more kind of contained and alive? If you're feeling outside of yourself, remember, you can pause this practice at any time, go back to the resources that we worked on in the resource video, yeah. We're gonna move through two sun salutations. If you have blocks, grab the blocks.

If you don't you're just gonna bring your hands either to the floor or to your shins, okay? Take the feet either hip distance apart, if the lower back or legs are a little tight, or bring your feet together. Let's find a really nice and stable mountain pose. You might even envision a picture of a mountain, and what that would actually be like to embody it. When you get the sense of the stability, lift the arms, breathing in.

Good, forward fold and we'll hinge at the hips, see if you can come down flat back. On the inhale, lengthen up, press fingers into shins or blocks or hand, step the left leg back, exhale. Good. I'm gonna move the blocks to the side, and then press my hands down. Got a couple choices, either, a child's pose, mm hmm, or a downward facing dog, lifting your hips up and back, pressing earth away.

Take a breath here. If you're in downward dog, we'll shift forward to the top of the push up pose, if you're on the knees, shift up onto the knees, shoulders forward over the wrists. Consider the legs either up or down, lower to the floor. Gonna move the block, but then inhale, lift up for cobra, lengthening through the legs. Exhale to lower.

Again, draw the shoulders back, anchor the legs, and let the spine snake. One more time with your breath, reaching legs, lifting abdominals, shoulders roll back, and lower. On your inhale, lift your belly away from the earth, press to the knees, knees to child's or to downward facing dog. Take a full in breath, empty your breath, rise either to the knees, and step the right foot forward or just step the right foot forward. Lengthen the spine, step up, and again fingers onto the floor or shins or blocks, and then bow the body.

Rise up flat back, inhale. Bring the energy right into the middle of the body. (loudly exhaling) And then one more time, inhale push down lengthen up. Forward fold, hinging at your hips. Breathing in half way, step your right leg back.

Take an inhale, and either to downward dog or to child's pose. Shift forward to the top of your push up, and straight legs, or lower the knees, lower to earth. Reach back through the legs, lengthen in the spine, lowering down. Lift abdominals, press to knees, child's pose or dog pose, full inhale and exhale. Rise up if you're down, step the left foot forward, back leg straight.

Step all the way up, and either using the blocks again or hands on shins or the floor, bow in, rise up, hands to heart. Consider pressing the palms together and bringing your minds awareness right into the hands. And so noticing wherever center is. Let's take that into the next posture. Move the blocks to the side for later, also so they just don't get in your way, so if you're using them, set them out of your range, your practice area.

Let's step wide though, about an arms distance, okay. And the feet mostly turning forward than out, if possible. Reach your arms out, there you go, and then really press down through the feet, and see if you can come into what I call the superstar, yeah, just let it go go go go go, let it go outta your fingers and your toes, be a superstar, that's it. Now, like a starfish, coming back into the center, draw the energy in so the navel moves back, uh huh, and the arms come slightly forward so they're more in the shoulder sockets and the legs lift up into the hips, and press down. And then from here, going out, energy extending out through your fingers, or imagining it, out through the legs and the toes, and then also returning back into your center.

Always moving out and in. Yeah, just take a moment what it's like, to notice what it's like to have energy through the legs and the arms and you remain centered. Hah. And turn the left toes out, turn your right toes in about 45 degrees, and we'll bend the front knee. Let's take hands to hips.

As you bend the front knee, it's pretty easy to have the knee collapse inwards, so try to direct it in line with second and third toe, that back hip might come forward, all fine. But press down through the legs and try to hug the feet towards each other at the same time. Now we'll stretch the front leg straight and reach your arms up, and like you're putting on a really big t-shirt, bend your front knee and let the arms come down. Like you're taking off a huge t-shirt. Inhale, uh huh, and huh. (loudly exhaling)

One more time, up, (loudly inhaling) and out. (loudly exhaling) We'll hold here. Consider turning the palms down to start with, and if this is just too much, hands can always come to the hips. But if the arms are out down, steady your gaze on one point, and from your navel down, be fierce. Four.

Three. Two. One. Stretch the front leg straight, reach the front arm up, so we're pushing down through the leg and lengthening up through the whole left side of the body, nice. And then bend the knee again, forearm to your thigh, top arm alongside the horizon, and overhead.

Let the bottom ribs rotate up, and from the fingertips to the toes, can you grow long. Notice that this does take a tremendous amount of energy, but you can also find calm and balance and ease through the breath, through the relaxing of the face, and then we'll come right back up. Hands on hips, turn the left toes straight. Breathing in and out. And to the other side, right toes turn out as you bend the front knee, track that generally in line with the second and third toes, turn back toes in.

Reach the arms open, uh huh, and take a moment to feel your legs coming towards each other so there's a sense of returning to the middle of you. Now, as you breathe in, reach the front leg straight, arms lift up like you're taking off a big shirt. Exhaling down. Inhale, lift the arms. And put the shirt back on.

Controlling the movement to be as long as your breath. And then back out. And we'll hold this time, palms up. Notice anything now in the body that feels strong, or fierce or alive. And to the places that don't feel that way, see if you can offer some compassion, some kindness, and some breath for one more cycle.

And then stretch the front leg straight, back hand hip, front arm reaches. Go go go, as you push down and lengthen up all through the whole right side, of kidneys, adrenals, ascending colon, bending front knee, take the back arm along the horizon line, up and over the ear. From fingertips to toe tips, grow long. Huge breath in and out. Can you be steady, alive and vibrant, and also calm.

And then coming back up. And bring the hands to the hips, right. And again, exerting the effort and then pausing and seeing the response that happens in the body because of it. Notice the heart rate, the breath, there it is. Can you feel your feet?

As you're ready now, we're gonna step to the front of the mat again. Step up, feet either together or hip distance apart, let's inhale reach the arms up, exhale bow the body forward, hands either to blocks or shins or floor, and lengthen the spine half way. And step back, you can step to your knees, you can step to straight legs, we're gonna lower all the way down to the ground. Bring the forearms underneath the shoulders. Not back, but actually so the elbows are under the shoulders, it's like TV-watching pose.

There ya go. And instead of, in the elbows, pretty much right under the shoulders. We'll interlace the fingers, press the forearms down, and now, we're gonna lift up to the knees or to straight legs, you choose. I'm gonna go to the knees to start with, okay. Continue to let your collar bones be open, really kind of engaging the center of your body.

This can be stabilizing for the back muscles, but it can also be really organizing when we feel kinda frantic. Push some of your energy into the earth, and draw some of the energy into your own body. Take one more breath, and then lower down. Lower the hands, turn your head to one side, and breathe, as if there's a balloon in the belly, pressing into the earth, feel the rebound of breath in your back body. Great, and coming up again, round two.

Press down, now either onto the knees or straight legs. Both are a tremendous mount of work. Let the chest be open, hug the outer edges of your body in towards the middle, and for 10 more seconds see if you can be here. Remember at any time, this is your practice, you can always come out, and you can also always choose to come back in. Five.

Four. Three. Two, lower down. One. Turn the head to the other side.

Breathing in and out, letting the body settle and release. Nice, back to the center. We're actually gonna press up to the knees here, and bring the shoulder directly over your wrist, and extend the left leg back, turn the foot flat, and then start to open up the body. And the last posture we actually did a significant amount of core work, just drawing the awareness to the center, see if you could remember that, come to your middle, come to your starfish energy, right, and then reach the top arm out, so you're pressing down, resisting gravity, finding the middle, and lengthening out. Take two more cycles.

Alright, top arm lowers, bring the left hand directly underneath the shoulder. The left knee underneath the hip, send the other leg back. Start to open up, right. Now those of you, if you have a little more energy in the system today, you're welcome to extend both legs straight. Keep breathing, two more counts, and then lowering the top arm down, nice.

Pressing back to either your child's or your downward dog. Right, we're gonna come to standing so step forward to the front, hands on your hips as you lengthen spine, and rise all the way up. (loudly exhaling) Welcome back to upright! Okay, let's take all of that, right. Most of you will probably feel at least some energy moving through the system, so now it's about harnessing this tremendous amount of power that we know we have or touching into it, and being able to move it slowly, right, if you see old Tai Chi masters, right, the ancient Chinese martial art, you'll see that they're able to move with crazy amounts of grace and power. So, we're gonna move with the breath of possible, or just try to make your movements fluid.

So it's really simple. As you exhale, we bend down almost like the chair exercises we were doing earlier, and inhale as if you're lifting your fingers through water. Exhale, try to feel the sense of support in your legs, in your belly, as you push the hands forward, and go to your edge, there you go, and then draw hands back towards your middle, either the heart or the belly. And we're gonna do that again. You might imagine you're pressing your own boundaries, you might imagine you're saying nope, come on back.

Mm hmm, or you might imagine that you're actually just extending pieces of yourself that you wanna share, you wanna share with the world. Let, or notice what sort of energy your hands might have. Bring it back to the middle, and now we're gonna clear to the side. An image I kinda like to use with this is imagining clearing all of the crap off my desk, or the emails out of my inbox, right? Right, our sense of perceived threat is not necessarily just a literal tiger running after us, unfortunately, in this world.

It's also the deadlines, the work, the achievements. Right, so if you can, feel the legs, feel the stability, and move, move move move with your breath, and we're gonna pause here, legs can be bent or straight-ish, but see if you can notice the energy at the very edges of your arms, through the hands, and can you still be upright and breathe. Can you still breathe. Great, bring the hands back in. You're still here, so you can still breathe.

Nice. You might actually move the hands to the low belly, consider closing the eyes for a moment, get a sense of yourself. If the eyes aren't closed, that's fine, just let them settle. So we just spent a lot of time into the lower body and the thighs, helping us stay strong and supported. Now let's give an opportunity to lengthen through those muscles that just worked really hard for us.

Step with the feet together, and you're gonna bend one knee and catch the ankle. Now, if your balance is a little unsteady, please have a chair nearby or a wall nearby, this is way more effective when you can have a sense of balance, yeah? So, I even bend my supporting knee a tiny bit, and think about lifting my hip bones towards my face as I draw the leg in. If this is causing any pain in the knee, back off, right, your knees are way more important than the stretch. See if you can breathe into the thigh.

And again, as we get into our thigh muscles, often our shoulders, our necks, our face, can get really tight. So check that out, alright. If you notice you're getting really rigid, would it be possible to head bobble. 'Cause if you can head bobble, you can breathe, yeah? And then release the leg.

Let's come to the other side, and again steady yourself with a chair or with the wall, lift hips, draw the heel towards the butt. Get a little longer. Take one more breath here, and then release the leg. We're gonna come down onto the floor now. Come into a kneeling position, or rather seated on your heels.

This isn't always comfortable for every body, so if you have a block, use one block use two blocks, if this still doesn't work, you can sit in a chair or you can sit cross legged. Just make sure you're in a position where you can be nice and tall. The next posture is lions breath, and there's really two parts of this. One that's going on is the actual breath, we'll take an inhale and we'll exhale out, stretching our tongue from really the back of the throat, all the way through the tip of the tongue, okay? And consider moving the gaze up towards the ceiling.

Now the other part of it, is more moving the muscles of the mouth and the face, right. As I mentioned in the previous posture, when our thighs and our hips are really tight, we're often carrying tension up here, so this next exercise is an opportunity for you not only to get some of that like, energy out through the mouth and through the breath, but also to work the muscles around the neck and the jaw and the face that tend to get really tight. I mean, if you think about it, how much of our tension comes from words that either have been said, or have not been said, that we've stuffed down and that we really wanna just get out, and that we've had to hold our faces and our expressions so still or try to contort ourselves just to fit in with, kind of the society, or with the people around us to not like, make waves. So now's an opportunity to let some of that go. I'll show you once, and then we'll do it together, don't worry, I can't see you, no one can see you.

Feel free to get a little weird, okay? We're gonna breathe in, (loudly inhaling) and then, haaa! (loudly exhaling) Uh huh, yeah, that's the look. (laughing) The second time, we're gonna get even weirder. We'll breathe in, we'll stick out the tongues, haa, and then I want you to spend a moment or two just letting your face contort and stretch and squeeze and open, kind of like you're a tiger or lion just biting into like a big big chunk of good food. Okay, vegetarians feel free to bite into apples, if you're meat eaters bite into meat, okay. Let's do this twice.

First time just the normal weirdness, second time bitey, bitey thing, okay? Here we go, breathing in. (loudly inhaling) Haaa! (loudly exhaling) Normal inhale and exhale. Let your face kinda relax, feel free to like, soften the jaw. And now one more time. (loudly inhaling)

Haaa! (loudly exhaling) Squeeze the face, contort the face. Mm hmm, and then release, and check out any sort of response, you might notice some twitching, some tingling, some vibrating or trembling that might come through, alright. All of that's totally okay, try not to shut that down if it does come out. You might also see images or hear certain words, notice that, and also notice that you're here in this room. Mm hmm.

Great, we're gonna come down onto the back now. So, move any props out to the side. Lowering down, feet about hip distance. Press the backs of the arms into the earth, fingers pointing upward. Spread the toes and anchor your feet.

Then lift hips. As you lift the hips, the pressure shouldn't be in the neck, rather in the backs of the arms and the shoulders, in the back of the head and the feet. Interlace fingers or press the palms flat down. We're gonna be here for three more breaths. Imagine using those legs you've used through the practice.

Keeping the space of the jaw open as you just did in the last posture, practice. One more, release your hands, lower down. Notice if that was medicine or not for your system, how does that show up. And then we'll bring the knees into the chest, give yourself a nice hug, drop the knees towards the left. Let the right arm open, the shoulder soften, and if possible, now instead of working, would it be okay for you to just give yourself permission to release, to let go.

To let go in the spine, in the arms, in the belly, in the face. Allow gravity to do the work as you feel the support of the earth. After your next exhale, whenever that happens, change sides. Slide your hips a little bit in the opposite direction, drop your knees towards the right. Take the time to notice, does this position actually work for me.

Not everything in your yoga practice or in your life is gonna feel good all the time, but you wanna make sure it's not causing pain or harm. If so, you always have permission to shift the body or to come out early. Learning to tolerate the more subtle sensations is also a work of trauma healing. Being able to just feel the little nuances, of ease of release. Or even, just like discomfort, or challenge, and still maintain our awareness of breath in this present moment, can be a really big deal.

Take one more cycle here. We're gonna roll over now towards your knees. Press up to sitting. If you have a blanket or a pillow, you might choose to sit on one, just to give your hips and your low back some space. We're gonna take the legs a little wider apart.

I'm actually gonna move off this. Move the flesh from underneath your butt back, take a moment to flex the toes, lift the chest, and then if the hips are actually, if the hips are tight, stay here with the hands back and your hips kind of pressing backwards, lengthening up. If there's a little more range of motion in the hips and back, consider walking the hands forward. Walk half way, pause, notice is this okay? Where's my edge?

My edge meaning the line before I cross into pain. And always trying to stay on the safe side of that, and then consider going down to where your edge is. As you steady the gaze at one point, you allow the breath to be even. Use one more cycle here. And beginning to walk back up.

Bring the legs closer together, one shin on top of the other for double pigeon. So the shins are more parallel to the edge of the mat, right, and knees closer in, more in line with hips rather than really wide. This is not an option for all bodies, right. It doesn't mean you are less enlightened, it just means that it's not necessarily an option for all bodies. So if that's the case, place one shin in front of the other, okay.

Usually this is pretty safe, if there's any issue with the knee, you're welcome to put some support under the knee. But flex your feet. And then this might be enough, and if this is enough, it's a great place to stay. If you wanna walk a little bit further into this sensation, go forward. And as we're here, what's it like to pay attention on purpose to intensity?

And knowing you can still breathe? See what else is happening in your system, how are your shoulders, and your jaw and your mouth. Would it be possible to release your fingers and the tension in your face, and maybe even some of the tension in the hips. For two more cycles, notice what you notice, any images or symbols, or even emotions. And then coming on back up.

(loudly exhaling) Good, shake the legs out. Come on back. Opposite side, and again, this side might be a little different. It would be great if we were even and balanced in our entire being, but sometimes we're not. So one side will probably be easier.

Right, accommodate for that. Take a deep in breath, and then hinging if it's appropriate for you. And so we're in here altogether about seven breaths. There's a beginning, there is a middle where you're feeling the sensations and noticing your own reaction to it, and there will be an end to it. So see if you can stay present right now.

And again, consider releasing tension you don't need in your hands, or in your face. Tension you don't need in your hips. Then reaching the chest forward, and coming on up. Really well done. So, before we go down onto the back, there's just one more potential tool, or breath work or sound work, that we're gonna do.

If anyone's been, we're on the coast here, and if you've ever been to San Francisco, you know that it gets really foggy. And there's a lot of lighthouses and fog horns in the lighthouses that help call ships into safety. And the sound of a fog horn, if you can bring to mind, is like really low, deep rumble. Voooo. So we're gonna make that sound.

I mean, you're already growled like a lion, you might as well do this, okay? If the sound at any time just feels like too much for you, you're always welcome to just listen and imagine, or you can press pause here or fast forward and move to the relaxation, okay? We'll take an inhale, and on the exhale we'll make the sound of V-O-O, voo, in the lowest deepest rumble, who cares about the tone, just let it be a low deep rumble for you and try to feel the vibration. Exhale all of your breath out, and then when it's ready, just breathe in and do it again, don't wait for me, don't wait for anybody else who might be in the room, just go at your own pace, and then we'll notice. So whenever you're ready, breathing in. (loudly inhaling)

Voooo. (loudly inhaling) Voooo. Check out the response. Maybe you felt a bubble or an opening, space or warmth or tingling. Notice what part of the body that went to.

Is there more space and ease or less. If there's less, reconnect to the ground, and if there's more, pay attention on purpose to that. If this practice, especially the voo, allows any opening or space or ease, feel free to use this, this can often help before sleep. And so now, when you're ready, we're gonna go and just take a relaxation of your choice. Lay down onto your back, feel free to put a bolster or a blanket underneath your knees or underneath your back, but make yourself comfortable.

Like, actually comfortable. And just notice that after all of this, how, a floor, a hard floor, can actually feel comfortable. So much is about perception. And if you're choosing to remain seated, you might even wanna find a wall just so you can have some support, right. And again, as always, eyes can be opened or closed.

But allow yourself to settle. As much as is possible, allow yourself to settle. You might imagine the body getting a little bit heavier, into the support of the earth. The body might even be cooling a little. And from the top of the head, down through your feet, be aware of any tension that would be okay to let go of right now, and I promise with any of this tension, you can have it back after this practice if you want it.

So, bring the awareness now to the mouth, allow your tongue to spread and release. The bottom and the top row of teeth. Your jaw, the facial muscles. Sinuses. The outer ears and the inner ears, releasing any tension they don't need right now.

The backs of the eyes. The forehead, and the temples. The top of the head. Back of the head. The base of the skull, the neck, and the throat.

Releasing any tension that's not needed. Down through the collar bones, and the shoulders and the arms. Through the elbows, the forearms, the hands and fingers. Tension in the arms release. Through the chest, through the waist, the hips.

Through the tops of the legs, and the knees. Letting go of any tension that is not needed right now. Through the shins, and the feet and the toes. Legs releasing tension that is not needed right now. And back body.

Lower and middle and upper backs letting go. The inner organs, like the stomach, the heart, the liver, the intestines. Imagine that they don't have to grip or work as hard at this moment. And the mind. Of course the thoughts are gonna come in, you're human, that is so normal.

But as the thoughts come in, instead of being dragged with them, imagine that they're kind of like clouds against a blue sky, just coming into your frame of view and then passing on. I'm gonna be quiet now, so you can take time in this space. I'm gonna give you about a minute. Feel free to just notice what you're noticing, and the letting go. So as we start to come back, if you would like more time in this rest, please take more time.

But if you are ready to return, just notice the state that you're feeling right now inside. What, if anything, feels okay? Spacious, connected, possibly grounded. If nothing does, what feels at least the least bad. Notice that.

And you're gonna begin to move your fingers, and move your toes. And reaching your arms up overhead. (loudly exhaling) And then slowly start to bring your knees into your chest and give yourself a good hug. Okay, and tell yourself sincerely, authentically, even if you think it's lame, that you love yourself. Love inside, mm hmm.

And then roll over to one side and take a breath. Come on up to sitting, take your time. When you get here, pause in an upright position, and just notice anything that might have some balance or ease. And then we're gonna rub the hands. (loudly breathing) And place the hands right on to the face.

Little massage through the neck, through the arms, through the legs. Alow your gaze to orient to the space again, just as you did when you started. Although, now the colors might be a little different. Your awareness might be a little different. Bring the palms together in honor of yourself, your spirit, your heart, your mind, to each others heart minds and spirits, and to those outside of these walls.

Take a deep breath in and out. (loudly breathing) Thank you.