Day 6: Burst of Gratitude

Hey there, how's it going? Day six. I can't believe it. Here we are again on the mat, day six. I'm super excited for this one.

We're going to start with child's flow. This will be our third time doing this. So this is really where the listening, the paying attention and making those slight little modifications come into play. So follow along, let's do it. Let's do this.

Push back into child's pose. Good. Maybe use that exhale I'm always talking about to enter the pose. You can stretch the arms out, get super long in the waist. Listen, pay close attention and that's where you'll get those kind of inner cues and subtle messages from the body to adjust.

It won't happen without you paying attention. So here we go. Let's go through the child's flow. So we come up on the inhale into table. Make the adjustment in the knees and on the exhale, kind of like glide down through the up dog, through cobra, all the way down, finish the exhalation.

Inhale takes you up through cobra. In the exhale, you push or pull all the way back into child's pose. Inhale into table and use the exhale to lower down. Let's push up into like a modified cobra up dog, right? So keep the legs strong and active.

Inhale, lift up through cobra, maybe begin to straighten the arms a little bit. See what that feels like. And then exhale, set the knees down, push back all the way, all the way into your child's pose. Hips, knees, ankles. One last time, breathe in, come forward into table.

Breathe out, kind of like slither all the way down. Inhale, cobra, maybe up dog if you're feeling it. Knees come down and you push back into that child's pose again. And I've said this before, this is like my go-to morning routine. It just feels so good for my back and my knees.

Good. Come back into tabletop, set the tabletop pose up, get your foundation, curl the toes under and let's take it into dog pose. Lift the knees, keep a soft bend in the knees, send the hips from side to side. This is one of those poses that there's so many little, tiny little movements, big movements you can do to personalize it, personalize. Soft bend in the knees allows you to send your sit bones up.

Where are you stable in the pose? Where are you focusing your breath? Let's take a little stroll up to the front of the mat. Walk the feet up. Boom, boom, good.

Slide up, half lift, hands on the shins right below the knees, pull the belly in, get a long spine here, breathe in as you do so and exhale, fold back over, just a casual forward bend. Finish the exhale there. Put a little bend in the knees and use your feet, use your strong legs and engage the core to rise all the way up, sweeping the arms out and up, press the palms together, get as tall as you can and exhale the palms to the heart. Let's move through a sun salutation, A, sweep the arms out and up as you breathe in. Exhale soft knees, forward bend.

Exhale lift up halfway, stretch your back out, exhale step back into dog pose, left or right foot, doesn't matter. Inhale into a plank pose. This is where you have to make the decision of how you want to lower down. Exhale lower down, point the toes back, lift up for cobra. I might even take it into upward facing dog on the breath in, rolling the shoulders back, lifting through the heart, using strong legs.

Exhale all the way up and back into dog pose, good. Constantly moving, constantly like assessing that listening, paying attention, thread throughout each and every practice. Look forward, let's step both feet to the front of the mat. Exhale as you land your second foot, inhale lift halfway, exhale fold, inhale rise all the way up and exhale palms to the heart. Two things with that, you can always add multiple rounds.

The second part of that is we're going to grab blocks for the next segment. Grab your blocks, place them on the medium height alongside your feet, we'll use them for the upcoming adventure. From here reset mountain pose, inhale bring the arms out and up, take a big forward bend, arms out wide or tracing straight down the center line of the body. Exhale lift the chest, lengthen the spine, exhale step the right foot back, bring the knee down and find, you can put the blocks up on the high level, we're going to find this 90 degree front leg, 90 degree back leg lunge. Take the arms into this field goal type shape or cactus arms, right?

So the idea here is to pull the arms back, elbows level with the shoulders to get that sensation of opening the chest and at the same time kind of like strengthening through the back body. This is also a good opportunity to kind of prep for the upcoming back bendy type things we'll be doing. Okay, so tailbone draws down, hips come forward a little bit, take a breath in, reach the arms up overhead, exhale bring the hands down to the blocks for a moment, step the right foot up to meet the left, fold, exhale, inhale, lift halfway and now exhale, step the left foot back, let's repeat this lunge action, alright? So it's 90, 90, right and left, find your balance, draw the tailbone down, keep your hips nice and level, bring the arms up overhead, bend them into that cactus shape and find out how this shape can really feel appropriate or necessary or, you know, good, just simply feel good, it's another shape that you're putting your body into, why are you in it and how can it feel even better or less worse? Okay, good, inhale, bring the arms up overhead, exhale the hands down to the floor or the blocks and step your left foot up to meet your right, fold, exhale, inhale, half lift and exhale, fold, inhale, rise all the way up and exhale, palms to the heart, good work.

Let's build on to that, inhale, bring the arms up and overhead, exhale all the way down into your forward bend, inhale, lift halfway, exhale, step the right foot back, bring the knee down, good, take the arms up overhead, maybe grab one big cactus opening there, lift the chest, you got to get out of the low back by drawing the tailbone down, the opening is a little bit further up the back body and across the chest, nice, now bring the hands down to the blocks, what we're going to do is I like to slide the blocks back to send the hips back toward the heel, now that could be too intense for you, let's maybe practice keeping the hips up, straightening out the left leg, pointing the left toes up and you can even put the blocks up on the highest level and play around with minimizing and intensifying that hamstring stretch on the left side, okay, now come back into the lunge, step the left foot back and we find ourselves in that hero pose, seat landing on the heels if that's available to you, take the arms back behind you, fingertips or palms you choose, lift the chest, pull the shoulders back, good, press the chest upward, right, the center of your chest, the sternum shines straight up, you can stay right here or begin to move up onto the shins, curl the back toes, have those blocks near your ankles for a little support as we move into camel pose, so why don't you draw the tailbone down, get the pelvis situated, correct, right, don't normally say correct or right but it really is important to get the pelvis into a neutral position, tailbone drawing down, you might feel a stretch up through the hip flexors, right, bring the right arm up, circle it back, landed on the block, left arm bring it up, sweep it back, landed on the block, find some stability there and from here instead of drawing back into it, lift up out of it, pushing the hips forward, chest up, active in your breath, good, now the same way we came into it, left arm up the right arm up, come down, grab the blocks and bring them to the front of the mat, land the hands on the mat and let's move through a little cat-cow series to bring the spine back to a neutral position let's say, so cow pose on the inhale, cat pose on the exhale tucking the tailbone, one more time, breathe in and breathe out into cat pose, beautiful, now inhale back into a flat table top, put your hands up on the blocks for some support and take the right foot forward now, good, right foot forward, low lunge position, arms reaching up, cactus pose, you can stay here for several breaths if you'd like or bring the hands down to the blocks, begin to straighten out that right leg, so you can see what's nice is through here, I like to lift the toes up, push through the ball of the foot which kind of draws a little bit more attention to the hamstring but then to get some ankle work and footwork, I also work at trying to like tap my toes forward and there's a long stretch down the front of the leg, so you can kind of play around with that and you see if I was never taught that it was just something I was interested in so that's really what we're looking for with this practice is like for you to have that trust it's like alright well let's see what that feels like, alright, good, step back, land on the heels open up into that hero's heart opener, stay here or build it up into camel pose, I'm going to use no block this time, reach back, right arm on the right heel, left arm on the left heel, this way I actually can really hold on to the heels because ideally what I want to do tailbone down, push the hips forward and then pull up on the heels, I can't pull on the blocks, here I can really get a bigger stretch across my chest, across the shoulders, play around with some head placement here, now exit, maybe the hands on the back this time, untuck the toes, you can move the blocks out of the way and push back into a really nice tight child's pose, so the knees, thighs kind of push together, forehead reaches toward the knees and the hands reach back toward the heels, so it's kind of like you're getting in this nice tight little ball to get this counter pose in the spine, start to walk the hands back out, come into table top, curl the toes and take it all the way up into what might feel like a nice downward dog after all that work, nice, on the next exhale, bring the knees down to the mat as we begin our adventure into the final closing, from here let's come into the new final closing, right, cozy seat, so make sense to make it cozy grab a blanket, if you don't have one you'll be fine without it, but if you do have it make sure it's nice and even and it does have a little bit of thickness to it, the idea is to sit the seat on the very edge of it so that it does prop the pelvis in sort of like a forward position, okay, you've done this before I don't need to say that to you, alright so we're sitting cross legged however you can sit with your legs crossed if that's impossible find your way, right, and that's the key find your way, so we're going to begin with some side bending, you're going to take the right hand bring it on out beyond the hip take the left arm keep the hips grounded on both side, right, reach the left arm up sometimes I like to take the hand behind the head and reach more through the elbow so the idea is to stretch the left side of your body so how can you access that stretch and it's not only the stretch necessarily it's the shape of the spine it's this lateral flexion so figure out if the arm straight feels good come over to the other side maybe that'll feel different reach the right arm up left hand there is kind of to support you right there could be some nice little like shoulder rolls to add to it hand behind the head is always nice bring yourself back up to center let's take a spinal twist so take the left hand to the right thigh the right hand back behind you get your prop there right your stabilization then lift the chest lengthen the spine exhale kind of hug the belly and rotate to the right I just got a little release in the low back that always feels nice conscious breathing always so there isn't really one pattern I'm asking you to breathe in it's like make sure you're paying attention to the breath and always breathing right exit back over to center take a deep breath whenever you feel like taking a deep breath let's go to the other side right hand on the left thigh left hand back behind you lift the chest lengthen the spine pull the belly in and rotate to the left gazing point is over the left shoulder got this nice view of the ocean it's pretty sweet no dolphins right now though maybe day seven bring it back over to center realign maybe you know sometimes that little counter pose feels good then from here hands on the thighs do a little seated cat cow chin to the chest pull the belly in and kind of like slide the hands over the kneecaps round the shoulders forward pull the belly in and then inhale slide the hands back on the thighs lift the chest just a nice little subtle forward flex shin the lifted extension in the spine good bring it back to neutral hands together interlace push the palms forward and then take the arms up overhead and again take maybe a little side bend you can take the left hand on the right elbow reach up get a little side bend that way as well so your right fingertips are on the left shoulder do it on the other side right hand on the left elbow good bring it back to center let's sweep the arms up overhead take a big breath in and exhale the palms to the heart close your eyes sit upright good we'll close out here today begin like it's just a short little mini rested meditation so the invitation is bring the hands down to the thighs soften the eyes the first breath you take in take a full breath exhale everything out but maintain an upright spine just sort of let go of the breath nothing forced just watching feeling paying attention to how you feel now what's going on how's that internal critic are your thoughts productive the invitation is for you to stay here as long as you'd like and the other invitation really as we close together palms together is to really do what you can to end with just a big burst of gratitude super stoked for what you were able to do today all right that's the invitation take it or leave it I'm taking gratitude every single day thank you and I'll see you at day seven namaste