Satya (Truth)

Hey, welcome back. This is our second practice here, and we are focusing on satya, simply translated to truth. Where in your life can you be more truthful? Where do you find yourself maybe lying a little bit, little white lies, or maybe big lies, that ultimately, speaking from experience, come back? Right? So how can we practice satya, truth, being truthful, so that we never really have to kind of like look over our shoulder or wonder what kind of story we, you know, told somebody. Being transparent, truthful to all people you come into contact with, I think is a good start. One example, this is most recent for me. I like to play golf. I was playing golf, and the guy I was playing with, if you're, you don't really have to play golf to understand, but it was really cool. He doesn't even practice yoga, but he was going to give himself a certain score. And I asked him what his score was, and he said, I was a four. And he's like, Oh, what am I doing? I can't lie. That doesn't serve me in any way. I got a five, you know, and I thought that was just so nice. It's a perfect off of the mat experience on how to be truthful. It doesn't serve anybody to be dishonest. Now with that said, is I think that there's a tactful way in which you can be kind of brutally honest, whether it's in a relationship, right? If you're in any, you know, you can use your imagination or personalize it within yourself. So there's a sweetness, you know, in being blatantly honest and truthful with somebody. So just think about that. It's again, same with the hymnsa and everyone moving forward. These are simply things to be aware of and to consider. Okay. Moving through your day. That's it. So with that said, I'm going to be totally honest with you right now and say that I'm excited for this practice and I'm happy to be here. All right. So let's do it. We're going to start standing and in the transition, now we're going to grab the, I'm going to use a blanket and two blocks. So take a moment to grab your blanket or whatever you need for your knees and two blocks. I'm going to place the blanket at the center of the mat. This will be helpful for like when we bring our, our knees down in lunges and whatnot. Okay. So place the blocks on the upright. If you've got unstable scenario here, maybe put them on the lower because I want you to feel safe and stable on these things. I'm going to, these are cork blocks. I'm on a stable surface. So take the time to get this set up so you don't have to think about it. All right. And now we, we begin in mountain pose. So this is sort of like that pose where you ground, we integrate into the practice of Satya. If that's interesting to you, how can we apply the principle and the practice of Satya within our practice? So I might language that throughout the practice. So let the arms relax down, stand tall, ground down through your feet, the little legs strong and active holding you up neutral pelvis. So we want to like dial that tailbone down and the pubic bone up so that we're always in this neutral position in the pelvis and hips spine is long shoulders back. So here in mountain pose, I'd imagine you feel pretty good and you're able to breathe. Well, let's take a couple of breaths. Feel the ground beneath your feet. You know, maybe do some small little circles, maybe lean forward and back. So you find your center of gravity, you find your balance and you're ready to practice. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in and breathe out. I'm going to go through three half salutations. So begin by taking the arms up overhead on the breath in, reach up as high as you can while softening the shoulders down your back. You can press the palms together, exhale, bend the knees, tip the pelvis or the hips forward and track the hands down the center line of the body into a forward bend. Let the head relax, inhale flat back, hands into the shins, long spine, exhale fold. Inhale, rise all the way up. Arms up overhead, palms pressing together and exhale the palms at the center of your chest, that commitment to be truthful with yourself and others. Inhale, reach up, arms up, palms touch, exhale forward and down. Relax the head. Inhale, flat back, exhale fold. Inhale, rise up, big full body stretch and exhale the palms back to the chest. One more time breathing in, reaching up, get that full body stretch, exhale forward and down. Inhale to your flat back, long spine and exhale fold. Inhale, rise up by pushing down. Reach up, stretch up, take a little side bend. So interlace the hands, index finger long, cross your thumbs, drop the shoulders down into your back, take a side bend to your right. Keep your legs nice and strong so you've got that foundation and you're reaching up, elongating, tractioning the spine so that you can laterally bend over to the right. Inhale, back up to center and exhale with a long spine. See this gradual curvature of the spine with a good strong base. Open that right shoulder up a little bit more. Come over to that left side just a bit and now back up to center using your core and exhale the palms to the chest.

Good. Okay. So one second. So what I want to mention this past summer, the personal story for you real quick, is I worked privately with these three young girls and their mom. It's the sweetest, sweetest experience. So I would ask the young girls what pose, what they thought the name should be. So we did various poses. And this pose here, arms up overhead, big stretch, the youngest. I said, what would be the name for that? And she said, it's the best day ever pose. I was like, ah, killing me. It was so beautiful. I think I shed a tear, maybe 10. I don't know. But so what I'm getting at is like, when you're in that shape, it's not just another shape, right? Can you make each experience, right? Each posture feel kind of special and unique. All right. You don't have to. Just a personal sharing for me to you. And I thought that it was just really nice coming from a child. Right? So with that said, let's do the best day ever pose. Reach it up, up, up, up, up, big stretch. Best day ever. And exhale, fold. Inhale to your flat back. And now using the blocks or not, whatever you've chosen, step back into downward dog. Tune it up for a moment. First dog pose of the practice. You might feel a big difference using these blocks in the legs. If you've never used blocks, right? Your back might feel a little bit better. I don't know. So we're going to eliminate the lowering down into Cobra and upward dog for this practice. And we're going to work on a push up or two from time to time. So first one of the practice from downward dog, we're going to come into plank pose, refined plank for a moment, pushing the heels back, draw the shoulders back, long neck chest is kind of open here, but we're not necessarily sagging in the hips. You want to almost keep this like tabletop position from the back of your head to your butt. So there's a little angle down from the butt to the heels. Okay. So for the first one, why don't you bring your knees down. And if you struggle with pushups, you have bum shoulders, don't worry about it. Maybe just hold the plank or join me in one push up, lower down on the breath in and use that upper body and arm strength, core strength as well to push up. Try it again.

Breathe in, lower down, breathe out, push up. Now lift those knees back up, downward dog. Take a deep breath here and exhale everything out. Take the right leg, lift it up and exhale the right foot all the way up to the block on the right. Settle the foot down, exhale the back knee down. Okay. Take the arms up overhead. Good. So low crescent lunge. From here you're going to bring the hands back down. You might actually slide that left knee back a little bit more to open up the lunge. And we're going to push the hips back, enabling us to, enabling you to straighten out your right leg a little bit. So we're going to cycle in and out a couple of times. So bring your right knee forward into lunge on the breath in, maybe even lift your chest and exhale. Straighten out your right leg a bit. Good. Breathe in, lunge, breathe out, straighten out the right leg a little bit. Come back into your lunge. Good. Curl the back toes and lift that left leg so it's nice and strong and step back into plank pose. Right. So I'm going to do this without the knees. You choose which one you'd like to do. Knees down or knees up. One push up. Breathe in, lower down, breathe out, downward dog. Good. Left leg up on the breath in, breath out, send it to the front of the mat. Remember to keep that back knee kind of long in this lunge. So you've got the hip opener here. You can take the arms up. Good. So you kind of acclimate and feel into the lunge here. Now bring your hands down to the blocks. Push the hips back. Straighten out your left leg a bit. And when I say straighten, it's really like it can still be bent, you know, be truthful in your practice where you are, right? So it could be that you can't straighten it that far or that much and that's okay. So cycle in and out. So we breathe in, come into the lunge, maybe kind of rock the hip back or to the side and then we push back using your exhale. Inhale lunge. Exhale. Straighten out that left leg. You could even, I'll move the block for a moment, lift the toes of the left foot. Right. You could also push those toes down. Massive awesome stretch to the top of your left foot. You might feel okay. So let's curl the back toes. Lift your right knee. Strong right leg. Step back into downward dog. Try to lift up to step back. Good. Downward dog's that awesome pose for you to kind of get that alignment. Get your reset. It's like a reset button. Now look forward. Breathe in. Exhale. Step the right foot, step your left foot forward.

Forward bend. Inhale. Flat back and exhale. Fold. Inhale. Power down to rise up. Best day ever. Pose and exhale. Palms to the chest. Okay. Breathe in. Reach up. Press those palms together if you can. Exhale. Forward and down. Inhale to your flat back and exhale. Hands to the blocks. Step back into downward dog. Get your alignment. Inhale into plank. You've already decided whether it's knees up or knees down. So you choose. Lower down. Halfway on the breath in. Keep your core nice and engaged. Exhale downward dog. Let's do that again. Inhale all the way through plank and lower. Exhale downward dog. Right leg lifts on the breath in. This time we're gonna bring the right knee toward the nose. Simulating like a cat pose. You're gonna round out the back a little bit. Spread the shoulder blades wide like pushing the ground away. The knee is tracking toward your nose. You're breathing of course. Left leg is strong. Now send the right leg back up into three-legged dog. Use that same maneuver. Knee to nose. Plank. Step the right foot forward. Nice. Land it. Land the left knee down. Hands up on the left thigh or right thigh. Sorry. Good. Nice upright position here for low crescent lunge. We're gonna take the hands back behind you. Interlace your fingers. Pull the shoulders back. Open up the chest. You can stay upright like so. Or you can untuck the back toes and let the right knee come forward. Open the chest. Like lifting the chest. Maybe the knuckles of your left hand are resting on your back thigh. Your back hamstrings. Breathing. Taking good care of yourself here. Right. Let's come back out. Curl the back toes for some stability if that's needed or interesting. Right arm reaches up. Eagle arms. We're still in this lunge. You're gonna wrap the right arm underneath the left. Reaching your right fingertips in the direction or onto the left palm. Okay. Now we still have your lunge working. Pull the right hip back into the right thigh bone into the right hip socket. Right. So we level out the hips. Elbows are about shoulder height. Press your elbows pretty tight together to deepen that stretch through the outer shoulder.

Maybe even let that right knee untuck the back toes and let the right knee come forward again. Lift the elbows. Steady gaze. Steady breathing. Good. Relax the arms. Take them out a little bit. Come back to more of your neutral lunge. Reach the arms up. Breath in. Breath out. Hands to the blocks. Curl the back toes. Lift that left knee. All right. You with me? Now step back into downward dog. Try to lift up. So here's the play. Push the hands into the blocks. Spread the upper back wide like you're pushing the ground away. Reach the core to lift the right foot up and back into downward dog. Left leg lifts on the breath in. Knee toward the nose on the breath out. So your shoulders are right up over your wrist. Your knee is tracking right down the center line, down the midline, pushing the ground away, simulating like a cat pose in your upper back. It's not easy. Not meant to be easy, but you're building this skill set of learning how to step the left foot forward using core strength mobility. Left leg lifts up. Breathe in. Same set of tools you just had working there. Knee in. Push the ground away. Strong, stable right leg. Step. When you land that foot, exhale everything out. Right knee down. Build the hands up onto your left thigh. Make any clothing adjustments you need to make. Okay. So you can stay here or now you can take those arms out. Interlace again. Open shoulders, open chest. Stay here or untuck the back toes. Lean into the lunge. Remember, lean into it because you feel like you're leaning into it and it makes sense. You feel the stretch in the body. You feel the purpose. Open up the chest a little bit more. Maybe take your gaze upward. Hands rest on that back thigh or back hamstring area. Breathing. So nice. Good. Exit out. Back to more of a neutral position. Neutral meaning 90 front leg, 90 degree back leg. Arms up on the breath in. Breath out. Left arm this time. Under the right. Wiggle it around. Left fingertips reach towards your right palm. Okay. There's so many different movements you can do here. Like you kind of like roll it around. Elbows high. Lean into the lunge if you'd like. Lift the elbows. Steady gaze, steady breath, steady practice. Pressing the elbows pretty tight together. That'll get that extra stretch across the shoulders and upper back. And now push back to neutral. Release the arms. Inhale the arms high on the breath in and exhale. Hands come down to the blocks. Curl the back toes. Lift the right knee. Step into plank. Three pushups. Lower down. Breath in. Breath out. One. You keep that body completely braced and tight during the whole lowering down and pressing up. One more time. Breathe in and breathe out. Land in downward dog. Exhale. And notice too I know myself included and a lot of people who love the yoga and the stretching is when pushups or any kind of strength comes into play. We can tend to shy away but be honest and be truthful with yourself. We need it. We need to build the strength. We need to have the capacity to push ourselves up and lower ourselves down. So let's take the right leg up. Breathe in. Knee to nose practice. Right. Knee toward the nose. Spread out the back. That's called protraction of your shoulder blades. Good. Step the right foot forward.

So every time you step it forward there's this exhale landing so we can rise for high lunge feeling like that. Just that one exhale helps to arrive here feeling rested and prepared for the next move. All right. So high crescent lunge. Feet hip width. Right knee is kind of working toward stacking over that right ankle. Little soft bend in your back knee. Tailbone extends down. Now from here bring your palms to your heart to the center of your chest. Commitment to be truthful always. Lean forward. Keep your spine and torso long as you place your right hand now on your right thigh just for stabilization. Exhale pull the belly in and take that left elbow across your right thigh. Land it. Hook it. Wedge it. Press the right palm into the left palm. If bringing your left knee down feels better please do that. Now we're in a spinal twist with a good strong lunge here. Roll open a little bit more so the left side of your rib cage is turning toward the inner right thigh. You're drawing your shoulders down away from your neck and head. Breathing. You're breathing way more fluid than I am because I'm having to give a lot of direction but I'm assuming you're on your end breathing well. Now come back out. Right leg probably feeling it a little bit. Come back up to high lunge on your breath in. Breath out palms back to the center of your chest. Warrior three. Right leg is definitely going to feel it here. That's a good thing. So from here you can just launch and float right into that right leg straight with a slight little bend. Warrior three. So find your dristy, your breath, focal point. Right side burn. Let's just call it the right side burn pose. So I have a little bend in the right leg trying to keep my torso straight long. I want you to do the same. So lengthen the spine. Palms rest at the chest. Breathe into the burn if you've got it. On your exhale might be nice for you to take those blocks as a little support so you can slide the blocks up a little bit higher for standing split. Lift your left leg up. Straighten out your right leg a little bit more. Rest your head. Breathe. This is one of those you might want to practice that Ahimsa practice. Be kind to yourself and thoughts. Right now you might be like, and be kind to me. You might be like internally giving me a, well, anyway. Step back. Ah, bring your left knee down. Bring the blocks back into that neutral position we had them before and bring yourself into a low lunge. So what I was saying to you, my friends, is that during those moments, right, you might be saying some things to me like get me out of this. Be kind to me. All right. Let's get down down to the other side. So arms up. Breathe in. Hands down to the blocks. Transition into downward dog. Stretch out that right leg now. Good. Doing good, good, good, good work here. Left leg lift it. Transitioning knee to nose, right? The protraction of the shoulder blades, engaging of the core, the left knee pulling up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, more, more, more and step. Land. Release breath. Bend the right leg. Powerful, grounded to rise up. Good.

Palms to the chest. Lean forward. Lengthen the spine. Okay. Now you're going to want to kind of pull the stomach in a little bit. Contraction to hook that right elbow. So use your left hand to stabilize that left leg. Exhale. Right elbow across the left thigh. Good. You probably need a little steady gazing point. So once you find yourself, wiggle into your spot, press possibly the left palm into the right palm. Say hi, hi. Strong lunge. So you're going to feel it in that left side while looking to find a functional, purposeful twist. Okay. One more breath here. Good. Slowly out. Reset. Back up. Maybe even straighten that right leg. You know why? Because I need to straighten my left leg. So that's the cue. Straighten it out so we can prepare for warrior three. So bend back into that left leg. Commitment. Palms at the chest. Focal point. Bend the right leg and now fly. Hips want to stay square.

So draw your right hip toward the floor. Extend your right leg back, back, back. Nice and powerful and strong. Lengthen the spine. A little cobra action in the upper body. Breathing. Good. Now bring your hands down to either the floor or use those blocks again. Standing split, which is basically like just lifting your right leg up wherever it goes up to straightening your left leg without locking it. Folding over your left leg. Good. Let's do two more, two more quality breaths here. One more. Breathe in and breathe out. Bend your left leg. Step the right foot back. Adjust the blocks. Bring your right knee down. Come up for one last low lunge. Take the arms up. Breathe in and now those hands come back down to the blocks. Lift the right knee and step the right foot forward, forward, bend. Go ahead and move your blocks out of the way and heel toe your feet out to the edge of your mat. So the heels stay on the mat, but you actually open the upper part of your foot off, like the toes and the ball of the foot off. Move the blocks nice and out of the way. So we drop down to squat. Malasana. Okay. So first one here, you can kind of lean a little bit to the left and to the right, trying to keep the upper body upright. Find your depth as well. Right. Really important. On your exhale, you're going to plant the palms, lift your seat and now straighten your feet out and fold. So a little recovery for those legs after all the lunges. Breathe in here in this forward bend. Breathe out. Open the toes. Press, kind of wedge your elbows to your inner thighs to lift your chest. So we want to work toward a lengthened spine.

Breathe in here again. Breathe out. Forward bend, adjusting your feet once again. Bend your knees, plant your palms and we're going to flirt with you stay here or anywhere on the way to this crow pose. I'm going to work towards straightening those arms quite a bit. I'll bend them eventually and place the knees up around the out, like below my shoulder and my outer left arm, below the shoulder, outer right arm, straightening my arms a little bit, probably going to have a little bend there. And now you can flirt with like leaning forward and back, leaning forward so far that you feel like, well, I'm going to fall, but I've got to engage my core and I've got to kind of grip to your fingertips. Okay. Now if you're ready, you might want to lean forward, lift one or both feet up off of the mat. Try that. Drop out, squat, forward bend. We'll do it one more way that you might find more accommodating. So it's more of a bent arm approach. So you're going to come down into squat. You can even lift your heels up. So you're sitting kind of like so. Right now. At the palms, bend your arms and place your knees on the, like right above your elbows. Okay. So the outsides of your arms above the elbows. And for starters, just push your elbows into your legs, legs into your elbows, creating this inner thigh core, um, bracing and contraction. If you've got that and you feel like you want to lean forward, go ahead and lean forward.

Lift one or both feet up off of the mat. Hold, take flight, breathe and lower. Squat. I'm going to move my blanket. If you'd like to keep your blanket, go ahead. Squat pose. So if you're interested in playing with that a little bit more, go for it. Otherwise we're going to make our way into downward dog. So forward, bend, walk back into downward dog, stretch out any part of the body that needs that attention. Come into plank pose on your breath in. I'm going to lower all the way down to the mat. Good job. Situate yourself on the mat, slide your hands alongside your rib cage. So if you can see your arms, they would be 90 degrees. So elbows right above your wrists, hands hugging the rib cage alongside your side body there. Now exhale everything out, lift your hands, press the tops of your feet like crazy down so much that your knees might lift. Okay. Now lift your chest a little bit. Pull the elbows up to the ceiling so you feel like your upper back and mid back is working. Nothing to see forward, so keep the head in alignment with the rest of the spine and lower. Take a moment here to create a pillow by stacking your hands and take your right cheek to that top hand. Take a moment to rest. Begin now to reengage with the effort. So hands back in that same position, lift the palms so the elbows are reaching up, up, up toward the ceiling and away from your shoulders. So your shoulders are drawing down away from your neck and your ears. Lift the chest, strong legs, reach back, interlace your fingers. Expose with feet grounded or maybe the legs lift a little bit. Good. Reach your knuckles back toward your heels and if you want to roll a little bit from side to side, go for it. So that might look like this. So if you roll onto your right shoulder and peel the left shoulder open, right shoulder slides further and further open. Good. Left shoulder keeps peeling up and back, right? So the head, you can rest the head or you can have it hovering like I do. We're not going to be here that long. But if you have got here or your back where you are, work on opening the shoulders and chest and continue to breathe. Good. Let's try the other side. Roll with control over to that left side. Place your legs however you need to place them so that you can acquire or get this stretch from shoulder to shoulder. Back over to center. Lift for one more breath and relax. Left cheek to the mat or to the stacked hand. Good. Okay. Time to reengage back with that effort again. Doing good work here for your back body. Alright, so now right hand reaches back to the top of your right foot. Left hand reaches back to the top of your left foot. Okay. Now it might be enough for you here to simply, well not simply, but to draw the heels in toward the seat so you might feel a stretch in your thighs or some healthy knee compression. If you'd like to venture into upward bow, use the strength of your legs to push the feet into your hands to now lift the thighs, lift the chest for upward facing bow. Keep peeling the shoulders open as much as you can. Gaze is neutral. Breath is alive. And release. This time take the forehead to the top of the stacked hand. Relax that effort. Slide the hands alongside where Cobra was. Use your hands now. Come up through Cobra pose. Inhale. Exhale back into child's pose. You want to get those knees and thighs together as much as you can so that we can bring the top of your chest and your belly onto the thighs and round out that low back. It's an important counter pose from where we just were. Forehead toward the floor, forehead toward the knees, hands reaching back toward your feet, your heels. Okay. Go ahead and push on up. Make your way onto your seat and we will lower on down. Lower down to our backs. So lower down. Draw your knees toward your body. Center of the body or out wide. Almost like you're flirting with a happy baby. Good. Extend your left leg all the way out onto the mat. Draw your right knee in tight to the body. Now whatever you need to do to slide your hips over to the right, you can bring your right foot down. Slide your hips and your low back over to the right. Keep your left leg long. Right knee extends or not actually extends, draws toward the body, reclined twist. So left hand on the right thigh, right hand reaching out to the right. So you get that right shoulder grounded and with your exhalation, do about five breaths here. With your exhalation, draw into your spinal twist, potentially releasing any low back tension or built up stress in the low back. Gazing point is straight up or over the right shoulder, somewhere in between. Two more breaths. One more. Sweet. Exhale. All right. Mindful of the transition out.

Back to the center of the mat. Maybe even take one pause. Extend your right leg out. Draw the left knee in. Give it a little squeeze. Slide over to the left. Right hand on the left thigh, left arm reaching out wide and spinal twist to the right. Keep reaching the left arm out as wide as you can. So you get this simultaneously as well as the low back. You're getting this stretch and open sensation in the upper body. Let's take one more breath together. Breathe in and let it fall out as you breathe out. Mindful transition back. To center, align yourself. Straighten your right leg out. Straighten your left leg out. Find a comfortable place for your arms to relax. Lengthen the back of your neck. So lift your head, tuck the chin. Final relaxation. A well-deserved and earned final relaxation, Shavasana. You can either quiet the mind and enter the Shavasana with that quality or you can continue to contemplate those moments in the day where you could probably be just a little more truthful. Or maybe there's one that stands out that you need to make right. How good that will feel once it's done. Breath is relaxed. Body is relaxed. Feeling satisfied. Happy that you showed up for the practice. Allowing your breath to dissolve you into relaxation. Start to move a little bit through your fingers and your hands, small toes, your ankles. Roll through the wrist. Stretch the arms up overhead.

Take that nice big lying down on your back best day ever pose. And maybe that's important to you as you move through the rest of your day or even if this is like an evening practice for you. To have that in your mind, that mindset of like this is the best day ever. Even if it's difficult and challenging. All right, come all the way up to sit. All right. So good job. I don't know how you feel but I feel pretty good and it's always really nice and being truthful. To be here with you and to practice and offer this for you. So homework, things to consider. Off the mat practice would be, I addressed it just a few moments ago. I have one in mind for myself. It's like something I wasn't completely right in and I need to make right because it's on my mind, it's in my heart, it's in my gut. I was dishonest about it. It's something super, super minor but it's bothering me. And so do you have something like that? And do you feel so much better if you just sort of release that, right? Or the homework is, right? The things to notice is where am I or where can I be truthful when my habits might not be as much for myself or in the world. So that's it. Not a lecture. Not telling you what to do. Just things to consider. So with that said, I'll see you the next practice. Thank you for being here. Thank yourself for being here. Namaste.