Whole-Hearted Yin

Hello and welcome back to our yin practice, today we're honoring the heart chakra. So if you have a blanket, perhaps a bolster, two blocks, grab them, pull them in. The heart chakra, of course, is right at the center of passion and compassion, empathy and love. It is fueled by the lungs and our breath, so we're going to be working a lot in the shoulders and neck and heart and lungs area. So take a deep breath in and exhale, good.

So we'll start by opening up the neck a little bit. Drop your chin right in towards your chest, take a big breath here, and as you exhale roll the head towards the left side and inhale, and exhale back chin towards the chest. And inhale to the other side, and exhale back in. Let's do one more of these, inhaling to the left side, soft in the shoulders, and exhale chin in, rounding the upper cervical spine, inhale up, and exhale back down. And as you raise your chin up, bring the shoulders with you, circling out the shoulders, finding a little bit of a cat dog in the upper spine, because this is where we're moving to next, right?

Table cat dog. So from here, coming onto your hands and knees. And if your knees are a little tender, you can take that blanket underneath your knees. I'm feeling pretty good today, so I'll leave it off to the side. And bring yourself onto hands and knees here, hands shoulder width, knees hip width apart.

Take a deep breath in, arching your spine, lifting the chest and the heart. And as you exhale, pull the tummy and round your back, chin in towards the chest. And inhale, nice big arc, deep breath into the front of the body, and exhale, rounding chin right in. So breathing between your shoulder blades, one or two more of these on your own, marrying the movement to the breath, it starts to calm the nervous system, calm the mind, good. Now coming back to neutral here, I want you to target the mid back, the mid thoracic upper back here, keeping your arms straight, as you round your upper back, bring the chin back into the chest.

So keeping the hips stable and arching just the upper back, little gaze forward. It's a small movement, but it brings a lot of opening between the shoulder blades, opening up the fascia, the connective tissue in the back of the heart, bringing the breath deeply into the lungs, surrounding the heart here. One more, good. And let's take just a moment in child's pose to let this absorb and maybe resting your forehead on your hands, little wiggle, little rock, and take a deep breath here, beautiful. Slowly bringing yourself up, this rock over onto one hip, let's bring our legs right out in front to set up for half butterfly.

So bringing your left foot in to the right inner thigh, and we'll start with hands on either side of your right leg, a couple of cat dogs here. So rounding chin towards the chest, inhale, little arc, and exhale, rounding, inhale, and exhale. You inhale here, walk your hands forward, take another deep breath in, find a little bit more space, that right leg is straight and strong. And as you exhale, bowing down, chin right, towards the shin, towards the knee, you can rest your palms up or down, whatever feels better for you. We'll settle here for a couple of moments, nice deep breaths, breathing space in between the shoulder blades, opening up the space in the back of the heart and the back of the lungs.

Bring both hips down, just inviting gravity to soften your torso, soften your shoulders, soften your head. That space in the back of the heart begins to open, just noticing what you can let go of. This feels really nourishing, staying here, or if you would like to slowly bring yourself up. Getting the head come up last, perhaps crossing the left knee over the right for a half shoelace might feel good. Same kind of movement here, just a little bit of a deeper stretch into the outer hip, low back, again just rounding your spine, letting the forehead rest on or towards the knee.

I'm going to turn my palms up in a gesture of opening, receiving, just taking these last few deep breaths, surrendering, nice. One more big breath in, exhale, and if your hands are turned up, you might want to bring the hands down and just walk yourself all the way back up. Straightening that left leg out, take a moment, notice, okay we're ready for the other side, bringing your right foot in to the left inner thigh for half butterfly on this side. Hands on either side of the left shin, let's arch and round, cat-dog your way down into this pose, deepening the breath. Next time you're arching, just walking your hands very slowly forward, you might want to rest your hands down or perhaps your forearms down, take a big deep breath, lengthening your spine, as you exhale, bowing the head towards or on the knee, the shin, resting here for a few moments, only letting the shoulder blades melt and soften down, okay, let's take a deep breath, as tension releases and gravity hugs your body, move a little bit deeper by walking your hands forward perhaps, okay, soft in the jaw, compassionate, inner gaze, take one more deep breath here, and either staying here if this feels really nourishing or walking your hands up with me, head comes up last and crossing the right knee over the left for half shoelace, take a deep breath in and exhale rounding the spine, resting the head towards or on the knee, I like to just soften, circle my shoulders, perhaps turning your palms up, taking a few more deep breaths.

Last breath in, exhale palms down once again, rolling up the spine, one vertebrae at a time, easy as it goes, straighten that right leg out, take a breath, good, let's set up for our next pose, I'm going to turn to the side here and slowly bring myself all the way down, so come on down here with me for bicycling the legs, just to kind of flush things out, bring some fresh circulation into the hips, the legs, the knees, from here we're going to move into a reclining twist, really wring out the upper body, so keep your knees together here for this, bring your arms out to the side, palms up, take a deep breath in and as you exhale bring your whole body over to the right, left hand on top of the right hand and then start to circle out your upper arm to massage the shoulder joint, open up the chest and the lungs here, so the knees are stacked on top of each other, keeping the hips stable and parallel, bringing this twist into the mid and upper back, feels really nourishing, opening up more breath into the lungs, let's do one more of these together and then when your left hand is all the way out to the left, bring your upper body over to the left to join it, letting your left arm, left shoulder stretch out, reach out, chest down on the earth, head is pointing neutral, relaxing the neck, we'll be here for a couple of moments so settle in, bringing your focus into the center of your chest, into the heart chakra and as you inhale, deep breath right into the center of the chest and as you exhale let that breath, that warmth, that light move all the way out your arms, hands and fingers, inhale breath, light space and exhale moving this energy all the way out the arms, hands and fingers. Being very curious, patient and kind to the tender sensations that arise in this part of our body and the heart. Trying to bathe yourself in tender, compassionate patients. Let's take another big deep breath in, exhale, slow and easy coming out, I like to bring my left leg all the way over to the left, put the foot on the floor, bring the right foot to join it and drop your knees in towards each other, take a moment, let things soak in and flow, nice. So when we're ready we'll bring our knees into the chest and slowly roll your whole body over to the left side, so right arm comes over to the left, hands on top of each other, knees bent and start these gentle circles all the way around, visualizing, brushing your fingers across the floor all the way around, drawing a big circle around you, massaging out the shoulders, upper back, you might even feel this in your neck a little bit, let's do one more of these, remember keeping your knees stacked on top of each other, keep the hips stable and the next time your right arm is all the way out to the right, really stretch it as far as you can to the right, palm up, let that right shoulder rest down, melt down to the earth, head is relaxed, neutral, deep in your breath, really calling upon the energy of earth's gravity to invite the shoulders to soften and as the shoulders soften there's more space for more breath, this all twists are cleansing and detoxing and releasing, we're really working here in the upper back and just noticing what you are letting go of here, I'm just taking a few more breaths.

Deep cleansing breaths. Rock jaw, when the jaw softens we get to smile, so coming out of this, bringing your right knee in, bring the left knee in, feet on the floor, knees together, take a moment, let it absorb, soak through, beautiful, rolling on over to your side, let's come on up and set up for our next heart opening yin pose, going to need your blocks for this, so you might want to bring the top block at the medium, if you want a little more support for your head and neck and the bottom block at the lowest, this block is going to be supporting the shoulders here, I like to take a bolster and bring it underneath my knees but see what you need, see how you feel, it just helps to support the lower back a little bit and continue to bring this opening into the upper back, so bottom block right here to support the shoulders, ah that's nice, and top block either at the lowest or the medium for your head, I'm feeling pretty good so I'm going to bring it at the lotus, right on the back of the skull here and just wiggle your shoulder blades underneath you so those scapula are hugging in towards the spine, you might want to separate your legs a little bit wide, a little bit hip width apart, arms in cactus if that feels good, you can always bring your arms down, you can always bring your arms over your head but you might want to start in the middle here, so we'll be here for a few moments and this is an opportunity to really bring your focus right here into the center of the chest, wide open space, relaxing your hands and your fingers, as energy opens up you might feel a little tingling, a little warming down the arms, hands and fingers, staying really soft encourages this energy to continue to flow, if you're feeling any tension in your neck or your head it might feel good just to rock your head side to side massaging the fascia in the back of the skull here, it's a superficial fascia that runs down the back of the body, it just helps to release the low back, open up more space in the front, calms the mind and soft eyes. As we let go of the last vestiges of tension and effort we invite ourselves to open up to more space, light possibility. Taking a few more deep breaths here, you might want to play with the arms over the head for a moment, take one more big breath and exhale, arms back to cactus coming out very gently, you might want to bring that right knee all the way over to the right, kind of bend that right knee, take your left arm around so that when you roll off the blocks you have something to settle into and really gently bring yourself all the way back up to a seed, wow that's good stuff, so let's take a rest in shavasana now, moving your blocks off to the side, if that bolster under your knees felt really good just leave it there, I'm going to leave my bolster here because it feels really good and come on down, before we settle into shavasana one last little little air bicycling the legs, maybe a little bringing the arms over the head, just give yourself a little celebration of all this warmth and space and maybe a little stretch, pressing the backs of the knees down, lifting your hips up towards the sky, take a big breath in and exhale, settle yourself down into your well deserved shavasana final rest, if your arms feel good out to the side they might feel good resting one hand on the belly, one hand on the heart, just noticing how you feel alright now, Just enjoying the softening that naturally happens when we attend to ourselves in these gentler ways, the energy that resides within is invited to us itself. It's taking a few more deep breaths.

It's gathering the wisdom that you're bothering your body. Your body has shared with you and slowly, as you deepen your breath, start to find those little movements and gentle circling the ankles and the wrists, wiggling your fingers and your toes, maybe a little rock, internal and out, external rotation with the hips, maybe bringing your arms over your head and giving yourself another big stretch, pressing your feet down, lifting your hips up. Big breath in and exhale, calm on down, staying in Shavasana as long as you like and if you're ready to join me, bring your knees into your chest, a little rock here, side to side, circling, knees around, rolling over onto your side, take a moment on your side, slowly pressing that top hand down, bringing yourself up to a seat, coming up, back into the sweet seat of Sukhasana, let's bring our hands into the glorious chakra of the heart. Thank you so much. Namaste.