Day 5: Fear and Courage

Hey Yogis, welcome back. Day five, we're halfway there. How are you feeling? What is your experience? We were exploring obstacles yesterday. It's a big challenge because we have so many obstacles that we're viewing in our mind that block us from being in our heart. And we're going to further go down this journey because when you start to explore your obstacles, sometimes you come up to a big block. A big metaphor for our wall today is our big block here. And that is when we find this block, it usually has something to do with fear. So we're going to be exploring fear today. Our virtuous word while we go down this path of fear very safely and in a controlled situation is courage. So we're bringing courage, that courage of the heart to follow the path of the heart. What does this mean? What does it mean to follow the path of the heart? We all have this deep desire, this soul's desire, this path that we want to go down. And we might know it intuitively when we move from the headspace to the heart space. So we're going to play with what is blocking us from moving down the path of the heart. We're going to move into a hand mudra. And as we play with finger yoga here, we'll do what we did last time and we'll do a little clearing. So find the breath once again, always check in with the breath. Inhaling through the nose and use the exhale through the mouth. Let something go a little block, move it out. Inhale through the nose. Exhale, let something go. Be fully present right here in this beautiful moment unfolding before you so that we can focus on this hand mudra. So we're going to bring the hands into prayer, but we're going to cross the right palm over the left. The right hand on top of the left and figure out which is your right index and your left index and cross the right index over the left and touch the pads. Do the same with a middle finger. Skip the ring finger and do the same with a pinky.

So we've got each crossing over each other. We've got the pads touching. We've got a free thumb and a free ring finger and we bring it right into this courageous heart mudra and bring it right into the heart. When we're in this space of courage, then we can move and find out how to move through this courage with that strength of heart. So in this space, I like to think of a challenge that I've had and it's actually public speaking. And in that space of public speaking, when I was talking to more than two or three people, I would just shut down and I would go into this. My voice would change. I'd go into fear. But something in me knew that it was part of my path to go and work in a public setting. So I had to find the courage in this heart space. And that's just a little example of what I was working with. Maybe you're working with something and you can use that as your metaphor for your practice today. What is blocking you from that path, that desire that you have? And as we move into some very safe explorations of poses that might bring a little fear about, you can think of that and hopefully will chip away at that fear so that we can get closer to that path of the heart. So let's bring it into a little prayer. Let's go on this journey together. Namaste. So we are going to start our practice close to the wall. Give yourself about six inches to a foot from the wall. And for this practice, if you do like to practice with your socks, don't use your socks today because they'll slip down the wall and we don't want to add any extra fear factor to our practice today. So we're going to make sure that we're far enough away from the wall so that when we bend our knees, we can come into this modified chair variation with the seat just barely touching the wall. From here, we'll start to explore our cat and cows. Our feet are hip distance right underneath the hips, palms to the quads. As you inhale, squeeze the shoulder blades towards each other, lift heart, chin and chest for your cow tilt of the spine. As you exhale, draw the navel up and back, curl the spine, tuck the chin to the chest and make sure you're leading with your breath. Inhaling forward, drishti up if that's okay for your neck. Exhale, lead with the core muscles, pull the core up and back to keep that lower back nice and safe. So mobilizers for the spine to get us ready for our journey today. Keep the knees bent. We'll take a little forward fold here. At any time you need your block in these forward folds, they can be really helpful. You can put a block right in front of you. Keep the left leg bent, straighten the right leg, right palm to the sky and we're going to exhale that right arm up and over the ear. Go straight into the other side, bend the right leg, straighten the left, inhale the left palm to the sky, exhale it up and over the ear. We're going to play with a couple of rounds in a nice smooth rolling fashion. So bend the knees, work the core muscles, rise all the way up. We're going to add a side stretch, inhale the palms to the sky, right hand grabs the left, exhale it over to the right. Inhale it back to center, exhale, left hand grabs the right, take it over to the left. Inhale back to center, exhale your palms right on top of the quads, cow tilt to the spine, cat tilt to the spine, cow tilt, soft fold, right hand to the block, we're to the floor, straighten the left leg, left arm up and over the ear. We'll just take a couple of cycles, really moving slowly with the breath, right arm up and over the ear, using quad and core, helping us roll up vertebrae by vertebrae, inhaling the palms to the sky, exhaling the palms over to the right, right hand grabs the left wrist, inhaling back to center, exhaling side stretch to the left, left hand grabs the right wrist, inhaling back to center, exhaling back to your cat and cow tilt, curl the spine with the exhale, lengthen forward, look up with the inhale. Two more rounds, follow the rhythm of your breath.

These mobilizers for the spine should set us up nicely, preparing us for our flow today, right hand to the block or the floor, left leg straightens, right leg bends, left palm to the sky, left arm up and over the ear, bend the left leg, straighten the right, inhale the right palm to the sky, exhale it up and over the ear, bring your palms to your shins and just hang out here, hamstring should be a little bit more open here as you move into a soft forward fold. Good, from here go ahead and bend the knees, use your quad and core muscles to roll up vertebrae by vertebrae, inhale the palms to the sky and exhale them right into prayer pose. So we're going to go ahead and turn and face the wall and see what it feels like to do a down dog at the wall with the wall as our support. So start with your palms about the height of your shoulders, arms shoulder distance away and start to walk your feet back, hinging at the hips, for some of us this might be the right spot to experience the down dog, pulling the navel up to the spine, not sagging into the lower back, being very active through the arms. If you're comfortable walking your palms down a little lower so the palms, the shoulders and the hips start to create one nice line, then you can go down a little bit lower if that's okay on your hamstrings today. Actively press into the wall with both hands, spiral the biceps towards the sky, draw the navel up and back. So this is our little home base right here, we're going to release the right leg. So start by bending both legs, so transition the weight into the left leg, power into the left, extend the right leg back hip level, toes pointing down, slightly turning in and then press the wall, press the wall with both hands, keep that leg active for a supported warrior three. If you want to play a little bit more, bend and straighten the standing leg, and see what that feels like as you start to transition that weight and feel that hamstring calf stretch. Good, so we'll lower the right foot down to meet the left, bend both knees so you're really grounding into the floor, extend the left leg back, and then from here you can start to straighten the right leg and bend the right leg or you can just stay really active in the pose. Drawing the navel up and back, actively pressing forward with both palms, toes are turning down on the left foot, supported warrior three. Good, lower the left leg to the floor, lengthen forward in a high push-up variation. So your shoulders and heels should be in a nice line and then if you want to play with a little strength, start to bend the elbows like a chaturanga variation and instead of sinking here into the belly, firm up the core muscles as you press back. So keep it very strong and active, quad and core as you bend into the elbows. You can do 50, 100, however many you feel like, but we're just going to do three right now. You can do some extra credit if you'd like. Good, walk your feet in and we're going to grab a block, actually let's grab two blocks, one for each foot, and we're going to place our feet right on the block, not all the way to the front of the block so that the heels hang off the back. Keep your fingertips or your palms actively grounding into the wall and start to lift the heels as high as you can and then lower the heels.

Lifting and lowering, if you choose to make it a little bit more challenging, don't touch as you lower and if you feel like bringing a little bit of that fear, that challenge into it, come up to fingertips or bring your arms by the side. Great for strengthening the muscles and the legs, great for the focus and the drishti and you'll feel that little challenge. How do you respond to the challenge? Good, as you lower down, shake out one leg at a time and we'll move our blocks to the side so that we continue our flow. We'll turn around and face the front of our mat, give yourself about that same six inches from the wall and then we'll start with our palms into prayer. Reconnect with the breath, take a nice begin to go through the nose, let something go through the mouth, nice begin to help through the nose, let something go through the mouth, breathing in and out through the nose, inhale the palms to the sky, exhale take a nice slow dive all the way to the floor. From here we'll take a little journey forward to our plank pose and we're going to lower down to the knees here and we're going to explore a different variation of cat and cows today. We're going to use the power of our fingers so that we don't sink into our wrists and we're going to take our cat and cow tilts on our fingertips so really actively press down and forward as you curl the spine and tuck the chin to the chest and keep the hands active as you drop the belly, lift the seat, lengthen the spine, heart forward, breathe into the cat and cow tilts, make sure the breath is leading you into each of these movements and take two more following your breath, good. After that last round bring your palms to the floor, we're going to play with a little thread through, when you inhale let's start with the left hand so that you can see me, when you inhale the left palm to the sky you're going to thread it under and through but don't touch the floor with your arm, maybe play a game like pretend the floor is on fire or something so you really aren't going to touch the floor, inhale the palm to the sky, exhale thread through and all the way across so we're starting to engage the obliques, the core muscles, we're starting to fire up those muscles bringing a little heat to our practice. On this last one as you bend the right elbow now you can thread all the way across, across, if the shoulder comes to the floor go ahead and lower down, press down into the right leg, right palm, we'll do the right leg in just a second so we could bring a little bit of a challenge here if you're feeling it, palms into prayer, push down and lift head and shoulder off the floor, the challenge could come from extending the right leg. So I'm playing with a little lift of the leg, a lot of our fear stuff is because we don't want to make an ass of ourselves, right?

So you might fall in this pose but sometimes the best thing for our ego is to make an ass of yourself so don't be afraid to make an ass of yourself, it's kind of fun. Come back to your table pose, fingertips once again if you want to add more of a challenge lift your knees off the floor, cow tilts, cat tilts, cow tilts with the inhale, cat tilts with the exhale. Give yourself one more round, this with the knees off the floor this really focuses on the mani pura chakra that fire, lower the knees, left palm stays, right hand to the sky threading through, no touch, your mat's on fire, inhale the right palm to the sky, inhale hand lifts up, exhale activate the core muscles, thread it through, give yourself two more rounds, flow with your breath, last one, go ahead and thread through, if that shoulder comes all the way to the floor great, if it doesn't just keep supported with the left hand, the shoulder comes to the floor and you want to play with the twist, left palm on top of the right, push down with the left palm, lift up, playing with that balance extend the left leg back, now I'm a little close to the wall but you can always move away from the wall if you want to play with this variation, just made it more challenging for me, I'm doing the standing split variation, good, lower down, come back to your table, walk your palms about a print forward, tuck the toes under and press back to your down dog, so from our down dog let's just check how close we are to the wall first, so if you bend your right leg and you lift your right leg can you press the right leg into the wall with that right leg still slightly bent, make sure you're that close to the wall, it's about six inches from the wall to your seat because we may want to play with a little variation as we move through this flow, so go ahead and take an inhale here and then bend your right leg as you exhale, keep it bent, you're going to fire up the core, the power center once again, draw your right knee to your right tricep and then just start to lower and lift, lower, lifting with that exhale pulling the navel up and back, three is probably about good for you to feel this and then extend that right leg press it into the wall just a little bit until the left toes come off and then lower it down, see how that felt for you, if you feel like that was enough of a challenge just play with that a couple of times lifting your toes off the floor and lowering them, if you're comfortable and you want to go up a little higher maybe step the left foot to join the right, press the chest towards the wall like you're in your down dog, lower down, come into child's pose, come up to your fingertips and give yourself a little stretch here, so we've been working on this with another practice our knees chin and chest so we'll come forward keep the seat nice and high hug the elbows in lower chest and chin slowly slide forward and we'll come into sphinx pose for a nice little extension of the spine rolling the shoulder blades back moving the heart forward so imagine the ribs are moving towards your elbows to give you a lot of length in the lower back so we don't feel that compression if this is enough for you right now stay here if a little cobra explore feels right for you hug the elbows in elbows move towards the heels heart moves forward in space press on the index and thumb internally rotate those legs tuck the toes under press back to your down dog a nice little spot to know if we're in our spot with a down dog with a head is ears should be almost able to touch the bicep so if we move from side to side good bend your left leg take an inhale good as you exhale you're going to draw the left knee towards your left tricep and then inhale lower and use that cat tilt exhale hug it up squeeze it up as you lift inhale lower exhale draw it up inhale lower exhale draw it up so the strengthening poses will help you get a little bit more familiar with the arm strength might make you feel a little bit more comfortable stepping into the wall so as you step the left toes back press into the wall maybe the right toes come off the floor an inch or two maybe this is your spot today honor that spot know that you've come to accept the challenge if you want to take it a little higher step the right foot back to join the left push actively forward with both palms go back to the breath lower down to your child's pose we're going to take a little twist in child's pose to clear the spine so thread the left arm underneath the right maybe a nice soft restorative twist right here check in still connected to the breath and then walk the palms back to child's pose and thread the right arm underneath the left and check in grab a seat on your heels and we'll take a couple of wrist stretches here whenever we do any heavy work walking the feet up the wall or we do a lot of planks or chaturangas it's nice to give yourself a little wrist stretch so flip the right palm to the sky and you can pull the fingertips back with your left hand this could be your spot right here or if you want to you can slide that hand up your quad that one's not for everyone right especially if you work on a computer all day this is not going to be easy for you to do so take the variation that works right for you shake out the right wrist and flip the left palm hang out right here or go ahead and slide it up rolling that shoulder back will help you feel just a little bit more here so go ahead and stretch out that left arm we're going to use the blocks for a nice supported warrior three pose so you'll need two blocks for this one and we're going to set up as if we're moving into warrior two just so we get the right distance the feet distance from each other the right heel wants to be very close to the wall we might have to modify just a little bit depending on the legs but this is a good start so we're going to turn and bring our palms to the blocks we'll send the right foot up the wall toes pointing down for this one you're going to slide your blocks forward so that your blocks are right underneath the shoulders so that we can actually lengthen the spine and feel supported i like to think of the two inner thighs hugging in towards each other adducting towards each other so you start to feel real strength and support here and then drawing the navel up lengthening the tailbone to the wall and being very strong in the back leg that's at the wall the right leg this could be your spot just feel the support here and the strength here or play with coming up to your fingertips softer variation is at the heart a little bit more intense arms out to the side like wings or start to draw the palms towards each other for warrior three and then see if the breath is still there don't lose the breath the breath is our prana our fuel keep breathing bring the palms back to your block we're going to take a little twist so the leg stays the same on the back right hand to the block i'm going to lower mine just a little bit you can keep yours nice and high bring your left hand to the top of the left quad keep a little bend in that left leg and use it as a lever as you press against that left leg lengthen the spine create the space for that rotation to the left lengthen the spine soft rotation to the left the breath the in breath is very active and the exhale is like oh i'm just relaxing into this pose bring your hand to the sacrum should be nice and flat here you could put a coffee cup right on top and it wouldn't spill in theory lengthen squeezing her thighs energetically towards each other and find the spot where you feel that strength and ease in the pose that's stearum and sukum that we talked about earlier bring your hand back to the block good step the right foot forward to meet the left give yourself a little bend maybe a little shake around do what you gotta do and then the right leg is going to be our grounding leg so if you need to reconfigure you can step back to that warrior too but if you place the right foot next to the left you should be in a nice spot a nice distance from the right foot to the wall turn the left toes down bring your hands to the block and then energetically lengthen through the front body it's like you're pulling up a pulling on a really pair of tight pants and it's thanksgiving right you're like get really long through the body and engage the core muscles stay here or come up to your fingertips i like to keep a little micro bend that i'm not locking in my leg palms into prayer out to the side or straight forward and keep breathing two more breaths one more lower down left hand can stay or you can lower your block a little bend in the right leg think about creating space with the inhale before you rotate lengthen with the inhale rotate with the exhale lengthen with the inhale rotate with the exhale and then lower down and shake it all out you got two blocks here so enjoy them for a little forward fold so after you've had a nice little rest and reconnect here you're going to bend the knees and you're going to grab onto those blocks and we're going to bring the block to the wall use our your core muscles to roll up vertebrae by vertebrae and then we'll turn and face our wall here so we're going to do two rounds we're going to do the first round which is less fearful and then you can choose whether you want to do that second round or not i'm going to be about a foot away from the blocks here so that i'm arms distance from the wall the blocks are going to be a little safety pad here and we can either always bring the hands to the wall or to the blocks we're going to channel our olympic diver here you know when they're on that three-story platform and their tippy toes are on the edge so i want you to kind of channel that as you rise to the tops of the toes we've been playing with this swan dive so as you lift up to the tops of the toes take the arms out to the side like wings and we're going to hinge at the hips you're looking down 30 feet 90 feet whatever it is that helps that blood pressure go up a little bit and brings a little challenge to the pose you can pause here and hold on to the wall or you can take it all the way down and bring it to the block or if you're feeling it stay on the tops of the toes and reach the arms out to the side like wings good lower the heels bend the knees give yourself a little forward fold so that could be an opportunity to do one more time or just using one block where your feet were arms distance you could also use the other block let's see other other block for safety it's good to have a safety net right tops of the toes here now you're really going to feel like you're on the edge of something here drishti focal spot and then we're going to take it out to the side again hinging at the hips so pull the navel up and back use your core muscles spooky breathe into it try to have fun with fear so that it doesn't have a hold on you you can bring your hands to the block or use your core muscles lift squeeze the shoulder blades together good bend both knees and slowly rise up good job all right so we're going to move our blocks get them out of the way and we're going to play with a little variation here at the wall so i'm going to have you step what you would consider a leg's length away from the wall balance on your right leg and send the left leg up the wall you may have to keep the left leg bent if you have tight hamstrings this is going to set us up for our next variation really nicely so lengthen the spine and softly fold forward lengthen and fold remember you can keep that left leg bent lengthen and fold find a spot where you can feel the pose everyone's got a different space and place to feel the pose as you rise up we're going to take a soft little twist left hand at the sacrum lift up and out of the lower back for rotation up and out of the lower back for rotation good we'll switch sides lower that left leg shake out the standing leg and send the right leg up the wall good you may bend this right leg it's going to be much easier on the hamstrings so we lengthen forward and we slowly move into this fold lengthening and folding lengthening and folding very active with the standing leg try not to sink into it keep lengthening forward stay connected to your breath good and then we'll rise up and take a little twist inhale exhale rotation growing tall with each inhale creating more space to move into that rotation with the exhale good so we're ready we're going to bring this all together now that hamstring stretch and that twist so step your right foot back left leg forward we're going to move into the arm version first so i think whenever we face fear we should have this idea of how we can feel empowered to move through it so we're going to just play with a little strength i call these the kung fu kicks so what we're going to do is we're going to inhale some the right arm forward exhale left arm forward right hand back inhale right arm forward exhale pull it back i like to bring that powerful breath yeah now all we're going to do is add the right foot right inhale the right arm forward exhale right foot left hand oh it's nice when you get a little snap right arm forward inhale pull it in you can think of something that's blocking you that tax man is taking all my money boom you know what's blocking you right now use this as your metaphor and feel like you're empowered to move through it play with us tell your neighbors and your family to stand back because you're ready okay you can keep doing that all you want but we'll switch sides right leg steps forward left leg back so we switch the arms the left arm is the inhale right arm forward is the exhale left arm right arm get into your breath channel your inner ninja left foot right hand you can add a little punch in here once you find your rhythm i could do this all day i hope you're enjoying this try to find that nice little sound you know you can lower your right hand just to get that little sound it's very satisfying all right so we've been working up to this challenge how you feeling we've been working up to this challenge and we're going to play with our little wall rock walk here so to go we did this little fear thing first so that we could get out of this fear of walking the wall and let's just go into it with a different mindset okay so we're going to go into that forward fold about six inches from the wall we'll include that little olympic swimmer dive just because yeah we'll bring it all together inhale the palms to the sky and then take the arms out tops of the toes fold hold don't be afraid to shake good lower the heels to the floor walk to your down dog actively spiral the biceps forward press into index and thumb step your right foot up hip level keep the right leg bent and start to really spiral the biceps forward like you're squeezing the shoulder blade squeezing the arm bones towards each other and then lift the left leg up if you're feeling it extend the left leg to the sky push actively forward and down with both palms the left leg's active too it's lifting and extending away from the floor find your breath come down at any time that you need to if you need a little bit more fear move the right heel away from the wall and really actively lift breathe into it and contract draw the navel up and back good lower down come down to the knees and give yourself a little wrist stretch interlace the fingers circle it back side to side switch the index finger that's on top and then circle it again how did that round go for you you feeling like we could try one more side let's make sure we try the other leg some of us as we move into our handstand habitually move to one side so we want to bring balance and strength to that practice we'll set up for our bound dog again this time we're stepping the left leg into the wall so bend the leg step it up the height of your seat press into the wall maybe that's where you're hanging out today if you're feeling like sending it all the way up actively push forward and down with the hands once you get the leg past horizontal it's actually easier i think than keeping it at the wall so push actually down and forward draw the navel up and back and keep that right leg really lifting to the sky all body parts are really active in this pose if you want to play come up to the tops of the toes and slowly lower we're going to take a little interlace in our child's pose to stretch out the muscles in the upper back and shoulders so lower your forehead to the floor interlace your hands behind the back and as you move the wrists away from the seat start to roll into that cat tilt moving the wrists away from the seat if you want to explore here make sure not to turn the head if you want to move the wrist softly from side to side make sure the head and neck are not involved in this movement so you start to feel this in the shoulders good go ahead and rest in child's pose reconnect to the breath from your child's pose we're going to finish off with one last down dog so walk your palms up into table tuck your toes under and start to journey your hands all the way back to your feet for a soft fold bend both knees use the power of your quad and core muscles to help you roll up vertebrae by vertebrae and inhale your palms to the sky so we did a lot of strengthening of the legs on those warrior threes so let's make sure that we're mindful and stretch those quads easiest options face away from the wall as you reach down with your left hand for the left ankle draw the left heel in towards your seat feel free to stay here right here for your 10 breaths just to release that front leg inner thighs squeeze if you want to challenge yourself take that same left leg and slide it up the wall the idea is to get the glute inside of your seat and start to press the knee oh towards the wall and you feel a little bit more in this variation so really up to you how your body is responding to the pose when you feel like you've had your 10 breaths let's go ahead and switch sides it's either supporting with the wall or taking that second variation at the wall sometimes it's nice to do both check in with the first one try to release some of the muscles first and let's see if the second one's working for you or not good those muscles that we contract during our practice we want to make sure that we have the opportunity to bring them back into that balance and release them good so we're going to come down to our seat let's take a little bhata kanasana and lower all the way down it's a nice prep for our finishing pose which is supta bhata kanasana at the wall so you can bring that left hand behind you and lower down to your seat and we're going to swing the right and left knee towards the wall and we'll get really close to the wall with our seat and from here we can lie on the back and send the feet up the wall when you bring the bottom of the feet together you can decide if you're going to create a nice diamond shape or if you're going to start to pull those heels in a little bit tighter towards the seat give yourself a little wind chill a little wiggle from side to side a little wind chill wiper or butterfly whatever feels like it's helping you release the hips a little bit and then roll the shoulder blades down and enjoy all of the fruits of your work your practice today thank yourself for exploring fear and how you respond to fear feel free to stay in this pose or at any time you can straighten the legs or stretch out for your shavasana as we move into our final resting pose and shavasana we're going to retreat to the heart so drop the attention from the mind down into the heart space almost as if you're gazing down into the heart and imagine in that heart space that you are in that perfect place for you that feels like you are retreating maybe it's at a beach or at a lake whatever feels like you are the most peaceful version of self possible imagine what type of weather is happening on this specific day and what you're wearing whether you're seated or lying what time of day is it and really settle into the space this heart space is home and the safety we return to this heart space and we move away from fear and we go back to the path of the heart you can check into this space any time of the day feel free to stay here in your shavasana for a couple more minutes if you'd like and then when you're ready roll to the side and a little ball for fetal pose and take your time coming back up to your seat to your seat so thank you for being courageous today and taking that journey into the concept of fear with me may those fears that we have seem like growth opportunities these opportunities as we move into them through them over them under them or kick through them we move back deeper onto that path communication with the heart where we want to stay home base so thank you for playing today namaste