Solar Nourishment

Hello again, and welcome to Yin Yoga. Today we're going to be working on the solar plexus chakra, yay, gut instinct, right? The power center, our core strength, that fire. Let's churn some fire today. Let's get this pilot light lit and let this light start to kind of emanate out through our whole body, into our mind, into our heart, out into the world, yeah?

So we're going to start with, you'll need a bolster. Let us start with a little bit of core strength just to get some tuning in to the heat, and then we're going to settle into some gentle, long, passive yin holds, okay? So move your props off to the side, and come on down, all the way down. Knees into the chest, just feel the earth underneath you as you gently circle the knees around a few times, just feeling this massage with the lower back, mid-back, sacrum, that wide flat bone at the base of the spine, just massaging out, grounding, and from here bring your hands down alongside your body, palms down, so anchoring your hands down, and start some gentle, slow, bicycle movements, really tuning in to the core of your body, hugging the abdominal muscles deep into the body, deep into the spine, towards the spine, almost as if you're bringing the core to hug the spine. So I'm slowing this movement down, and I'm not bringing my knees right into the chest to keep that tone happening in the core.

You might start feeling a little bit of warming, it's good. Let's do about five more, nice deep breaths, visualizing that spot between the pubic bone and the belly button, firing up one more, good, nice job. Knees into the chest again, deep cleansing breath, and exhale, good. So second core warming, bring your arms out to the side, turn your palms down again, shoulders pressing down into the earth so you have a lot of space across the collarbones, move those knees away again, so feeling your abdominals hugging in towards the spine, and we're going to rock from side to side, but not drop the knees to the floor. So keeping your core engaged, take a deep breath here, and as you exhale, rock your knees to the right, almost to the floor, but not quite, inhale, come back to center, and exhale, knees to the left, good, inhale, pulling the abdominal muscles in, and exhale to the right, nice and slow, let the movement match the rhythm of your breath, so we're inhale ascending, and exhale to the left descending, let's do two more full rounds, you can stay with the knees bent, or if you want to add a little more juice to it, you can straighten your legs, left shoulder pressing down to the earth, inhale up, and exhale, inhale up.

One more time together, exhale almost to the floor, but not quite, inhale, come back up, last one, and exhale, good, beautiful job, come back in, circle things around, just letting all that energy soak in and absorb, good, last core warming, so this one's a little bit, it looks subtle but it feels profound potentially, so visualize your knees pressing straight up to the sky, so you're not bringing your knees into your chest, you're bringing your knees straight up to the sky as a result of pulling the core in, so it's a little bit of a pelvic tilt, and press your palms down, you're gonna feel those deep abdominal muscles squeezing in, warming up for five, four, three, two, one, let's hold it for five, pulling in, squeezing in, four, take a deep breath, three, soften the shoulders, two, and one, that felt good, so open your knees out to the side and give your whole solar plexus, belly, pelvis a lot of space as you rock side to side, good, now let's straighten the legs out, I'm gonna scooch a little bit closer up here, so you're on the mat, straighten your whole body out, give yourself a full body stretch, you might want to clasp your hands and stretch your palms out above your head, stretch your feet deep, deep, deep in front of you, and take another big breath here in this full body stretch, stretching out the core, and from here, walk your right foot over, right leg over to the right about 45 degrees, bring the left to join it and arc your upper body over to the right, now you might want to release the clasp of your hands, take your right hand and grab onto that left hand to traction out the wrist and stretch the left side of your body, half moon reclining stretch, opening up those deep core muscles that we just stimulated and worked, giving them a lot of space, take three more big breaths here, breathing into the side body, that feels great, one more, beautiful, come on back to center, walk your left leg all the way to the left and take a moment and let your body absorb this fiery bright warmth energy, so moving to the other side, your left leg is already over to the left, bring the right to join it, bring the arms back over the head, start with the hands clasped just for a moment as you arc your upper body to the left here and then release that clasp with your left hand hold onto the right hand so we're tractioning out the wrist, giving that wrist a lot of space, taking three big deep breaths here, soften the shoulders, soften the eyes, bring the last breath all the way down into the core of your body, being fresh oxygen, beautiful, release the hands, bringing that right leg all the way over to the right and take a moment, the medicinal qualities of these poses for me are in the moments afterwards when you feel the energy flowing through your body, it's really fun, okay so let's move on, just bring your knees into your chest here and rock on over to your side, taking that top hand, letting the head come up last, nice and slow, that feels so good, okay you're ready with your bolster, yeah, so bolster right underneath your hips low back, we're going to bring this into a kind of a reclining twist, I call it starfish, celebrated starfish, so come all the way onto your back, you've got this bolster supporting you might want to scooch down a little bit so you feel that nice anchor here, straighten out your right leg, bring that left knee into the chest and just draw a couple little circles here to massage out the hip flexor, getting fresh synovial fluid into the joint and then you are going to rock your left knee all the way over to the right, so make sure you're far enough back, I'm actually going to lift up and scooch back on that bolster so that when you do rock over to the right you don't tumble down onto the earth, from here you might want to take your left hand and just anchor the outer edge of your right hand, anchor the outer edge of that left knee and give the shoulder a couple little circles here, eventually bringing your left shoulder all the way up over your head and arching over to the left with that left shoulder into a full starfish pose, now this left knee might want to stay bent, it might want to straighten out to get a full side body ringing out stretch and then let yourself settle in here, we'll be here for a few minutes, it's a really powerful shape to ring out the whole core of our body, we've done a lot of work building the heat and the strength, we've done some nice stretching, now we want to ring it out bringing fresh blood and chi energy, detoxing, deepen your breath and then as always widen your internal gaze, notice the sensations, notice any areas that you are able to soften, let go of, breathe in to those sticky spots, you may be feeling a little warm here in the core, getting the energy opening up, I can feel a really nice stretch across the side of my body all the way out that left arm, you might want to just nudge that knee down a little bit and stretch out the left side a little bit more using a little bit of that core strength to deepen into this pose. Around the back of your head, your brow, so take three more deep breaths here, focusing on the exhales, beautiful, the last inhale, slowly gently bringing your left knee all the way up, you might want to draw a couple of circles here, that feels really good, encouraging this energy to move through the body, good, bending your left knee, bending your right knee, lifting up, scooching over onto the right side of your bolster, preparing to move to the other side, take a moment, notice, and slow and easy, straighten your left knee, bring that right knee in towards your chest, draw those little circles, massaging out the right hip flexor deep into the psoas, deep core hip flexor, loves this kind of massage, and from here we're going to rock the left knee all the right knee all the way over to the left, and just draw a couple little circles with your right shoulder, and then adding that right arm all the way up over your head and stretch it over to the right, that's nice, your left hand is just nudging that right knee down, either staying with a little bent knee, it's a little gentler, or perhaps straightening out that left leg, you can play with it and see what feels more interesting, one side may be different than the other, settle in. As tension begins to melt away and drop off you, fill those spaces with breath, the light and the warmth that's coming, emanating from the solar plexus, the core chakra, you might want to bring your right arm just a little bit up here, you feel a little bit of a deeper stretch here in the pec minor muscles up into the intercostals, these twists are also very healthy for the spine, and as the solar plexus chakra works the core in the front, it also works the low mid back in the back, so we're wringing out the spine cleansing the vertebrae nervous system. Soft eyes, soft jaw, staying really tuned in to those sensations, especially in the viscera of the body, our organs, our guts, hold a lot of sensations, a lot of fire. Let's take three more deep breaths here, and then last inhale, going to help being your right knee all the way back in, maybe drawing a circle or two with your right knee, and putting that right foot on the floor, bending your left knee, lifting up and switching back to the center here for a moment to let your knees drop in and allow your body, your mind, your heart to absorb this heat, this warmth, this energy, beautiful, okay, let's move on.

So we've done a lot of core strength, we've done this really luscious big twist. Let's bring some opening into the front of the hips here, so we'll start with a left knee into the chest once again, drawing those little circles. We'll move from here into an inverted lunge, so I'm just going to scooch up and move a little bit further towards the top of the bolster, so you have that bolster under your low back hips, and bring your left knee, holding onto the shin if that feels comfortable for you, or holding onto the back of the leg, whatever feels better, soften in the shoulders, and bring your left knee in towards your chest as deeply as you can, flushing out that left hip flexor deep into the descending colon, this is really nourishing for digestion, cleansing the intestines, and then start to fire up your right leg, so really feel the energy moving all the way down the front of your body, down the quadricep top of the leg, all the way down and out the ball of your right foot, energizing that right leg as you're bringing your left knee into your chest, visualizing a lunge, we just inverted it to allow it to be a little bit more restorative, a little bit more restful, as we'll be here for a few minutes, breathing deeply into the low belly, to the top of the thigh, soften the shoulders, you can always also do this on a block, I like to do it on a bolster, just feels a little more comfortable on my low back, but you can try a block. So for this last few breaths, it might be kind of interesting to take your left hand on your left knee and just let the right arm rest out to the side or over your head and open that left knee out to the left and stretch your right arm up, deep breaths, three to five deep breaths here, just claiming more space, more light, more warmth in your body, beautiful, bringing your left knee back in and a couple of these sweet circles on that left knee might feel really good, setting your left knee, left foot on the floor, slowly bringing your right foot in, take a moment, drop your knees in, you might want to let your hands rest right here on your belly, and notice right side, left side, what are the sensations, and let's come to the other side now, bringing your right knee in towards your chest, drawing those little circles. With your hands clasping either onto the shin or onto the back of your right thigh, soften the shoulders and then begin to bring the strength and the length into the left leg, pressing long and strong all the way down through the ball of that left foot.

We'll be here for a few moments, so settle in, hugging the right knee into the chest, wringing out the ascending colon and nourishing digestion, we've got the liver and gallbladder on this side so it's really detoxing, deep breaths, soft in the back of the neck, soft in the back of your head, gentle internal gaze. Notice these last few breaths scanning your body and noticing where you can just let go of any extraneous tension drop away. Soften something, beautiful. Good hand, right knee, left arm up over your head, open that right knee out towards the right, stretching the whole left side of your body, take a few deep breaths here. Lie it out, right knee into the chest, draw a couple sweet little circles, pressing your right foot on the floor, sliding that left knee in, drop your knees in towards each other, just taking a moment, gathering up the information, the energy that your body's shared with you.

Let's move into Shavasana. So lifting your hips up, sliding your bolster right underneath your knees, you might want to bring the soles of your feet together for a few moments or you might want to just straighten your legs all the way out and settle right into your final rest. This feels really good for me, so see what you need. Breathing your journey, continue with this gentle final rest and unwinding, unraveling and allowing yourself to loosen around the edges, inviting in more light, more warmth, more space. Meeting in more of you.

Breathing in and out. Double deep breaths. Through your whole body. Slowly, as you continue to deepen your breath, start to find those little movements, little circling of the ankles and the wrists, little nodding of the head, gently bring your knees into your chest, soft gaze as you open your eyes, rolling over onto your side, gently bringing yourself up once again to a seat, gentle cross-legged sukhasana, bringing your hands in any position you would like them, resting on the heart, bowing in as always to the teachers and guides within you. Thank you so much for joining me, namaste.