Breathe in a Sense of Safety

Talk

Oh Arturo, it's really good to see you, you know, I'm remembering the first time I met you back in the summer of 2001 at the Santa Barbara Yoga Center run by Laisse at the time and you really, you were the beginning for me of this invitation into the nervous system and how this magical anatomy works, particularly the question that's always stuck with me that you helped me understand this perpetual, vigilant asking of this question of am I safe, am I safe? And as we find ourselves right now in a particularly complex time, wondering what practices and what you're doing or not doing or finding helpful to feel safe right now. Oh yeah, that's a, that's a big one. That's one of my favorite questions in terms of looking at the body, mind and react, reacting, acting and reacting to that question of am I safe? We humans tend to forget that we're still animals, right?

So we still have this fundamental animal question that's going on about survival. And right now in terms of feeling safe, it's a really challenging time for me and for everybody starting with the pandemic and having this thing that's potentially on my skin and in my nose that makes me not safe where I can't connect with people, I can't touch people, I can't do the kind of body work that I do, I can't do Aikido, the usual things that help me move into my own process of safety. And then layered on top of that is the whole social justice issues with George Floyd. Well just the list is too long to go on to speak. So my practices now are basically this mat, this is where I do my home yoga practice and my home Aikido practice and it's a real challenge for me.

I'm having a hard time, like a lot of people are having a hard time. It takes more constant, more consistent and constant work to get grounded and I don't feel like I'm nearly as grounded as my usual self. So the practice is more and more important and it's even in some ways harder to do sometimes because it's such a stressful, sometimes I just want to watch Toy Story and tune it out like I self medicate with animation to just take a break. And that's one of the self practices that I do is I realized I was looking at news and social media like at 10 o'clock at night and then not sleeping well. So now I don't, I turn that off.

I don't look at any of that stuff after 6 p.m. and if I am on the internet it's to look up either something anatomical because I'm still an anatomy nerd or it's to look up something beautiful or cool or funny but I will not look at the news after 6 p.m. which is an amazing privilege to be able to do that, to be able to shut it out for a while but it's also helped me sleep much better because sleeping has been an issue and I know it's an issue for a lot of folks right now. That's great advice. Thank you for that, yeah it's easy to forget sometimes just taking a break. Yeah, taking a breath, yeah. So tell us a little bit about the practice we get to do with you today.

Well speaking of breath, we'll be taking lots of breaths today. One of the things in that question that you were mentioning about, am I safe? One of the great things that we can do for ourselves to help us get back to that yes I'm safe to help us get out of the fight or flight mode is to do some belly breathing, some diaphragmatic breathing. So during the whole class I'll be tuning us back into the breath and we're going to start off standing and we're going to do a thing called meridian massage. It's a light touch movement and brushing of the energy meridians.

I'm an acupuncturist so we'll be doing a light self-massage on the acupuncture meridians to help move the energy and in Chinese medicine the energy and the emotions are completely interwoven with each other. There's no separating emotions and the physical structure and the functions. They're all completely interwoven. So getting the energy moving can help us get the emotions moving, can help us breathe a little better and move a little better and find ground in this practice. And then we'll come down to sitting and for the sitting part you may want to get if you have a cushion like this, a couch cushion, something that brings your hips up a little bit so your knees can come either level or a little lower with your hips.

So you may want to get that now. And then we'll do for the last part of class we'll do some lie down yoga. We'll be working on freeing up the hips again and we'll need this cushion again we're going to do right before our final relaxation. We're going to do a long stretch for the iliopsoas for the hip flexors. Since we're all sitting like this our everybody's soas are getting really tiny and short and kids included so everybody can stand to take a little time to stretch out the soas and also stretch out the base of the neck because we're all doing this too.

So the suboccipital is the base of the neck, base of the skull rather and the hip flexors will be where we end right before Shavasana. That's delicious and just hearing your voice again has already got me in that hypnotic like Arturo land. So grateful you're here. Thanks so much and it's all yours. I'm so glad to be here.

Thank you.

Practice

So we're going to start off at the inside corners of the eyes going to come up over the top of the head down the back of the head and the neck and then down the back of body down the back of the hamstrings and out the pinky toe side of the foot and coming back up to the inside corner of the eyes up over the top of the head down the back of the neck you kind of have to switch your arms around down the back lower back back of the hamstrings the ankle and pinky toe side. We're doing the young meridians of the legs we're going to repeat this several times while I'm talking young meridians of legs and the intention is important here because energy follows intention so the intention is our intention is to if we think of the acupuncture meridians like channels or like the gutters on your house we want to clear all the leaves all the stuck stuff from the gutters so that energy can flow like water again the inside corner of the eyes up over the top of the head down the back of the neck down the back cross the hips back to the knees out the pinky toe side we're doing that with light physical contact back of the body and out the pinky toe side and the meridians we're accessing are the young meridians of the legs so the main one here is the bladder meridian which is the longest meridian in the body it starts at the inside corners of the eyes and follows this pathway all the way down to the pinky toe side. Now breathing is always a good idea so you can inhale here and then as you fold forward come out your pinky toes you can exhale and then we'll do it three more times and try it with the intention being on the energy body so come off the physical body a little bit and do it about six inches or so off the body down the back of the body out the pinky toe side inside corner of the eyes up over the top of the head down the back of the body pinky toe side one more time inside corner of the eyes over the top of the head down the back of the body pinky toe side good the young meridians of the legs now we're going to continue to the yin meridians of the legs and that's going to come up from the big toe side up the inner leg the inner thigh up the center of the body and then spreading wide at the heart to the inside of the big toe and ankle up the inner leg up the center of the body and spreading wide at the heart the yin meridians of the legs include the liver kidney and spleen meridians opening wide at the heart inside of the big toe inside the leg the thigh up the center line of the body spreading wide at the heart towards the armpits inner foot leg thigh up the front of the body spreading wide at the heart inside of the leg up the center of the body and spreading wide at the heart let's do it three more times this time with the off-body contact inside of the foot inside of the leg and thigh up the center of the body spreading wide at the heart inside of the foot inside the leg and thigh up the center of the body spreading wide at the heart again inside of the foot leg up the center of the body spreading wide at the heart and just take a pause so we've done the yang meridians of the legs the yin meridians of the legs now we're going to go to the yin meridians of the arms we just ended spreading wide at the heart and we're going to do the arms one side at a time so the yin meridians of the arm starting from the area of the armpit and spreading down the inner arm towards the pinky and palm side and then switching to the other side starting at the armpit going down towards the palm and pinky side and switching again keeping that intention like we're clearing out any obstructions from our channels from our energetic rain gutters going side to side armpit out the palm and pinky side of the arm the yin meridians of the arms include the heart the pericardium which is the heart protector and the lung meridians which are really important to it's really important to move the heart and lung chi at this time when there's a lot of fear around what can happen to our heart and lung armpit inner arm palm and pinky side let's do three more times on each side focusing off with the off-body contact from the armpit on the inner arm palm and pinky side now some people feel the energetic version of this more and some people feel the physical contact version more so try both and see what feels right for you armpit inner arm out the palm and pinky side cleansing the energetic meridians one more time on each side out the palm and pinky side armpit arm palm and pinky side that was the yin meridians of the arms now we're going to do the yang meridians of the arms so turning to go to the back of the hand we're going to come up from the fingertips up the back of the arm coming to get a little bit of the shoulder blade and then the side of the neck to the side of the face and then the other side back of the hand back of the arm catch a little piece of the shoulder blade come up the side of the neck to the side of the face up the back of the arm back of the shoulder blade side of the neck to the side of the face back of the hand arm shoulder blade side of the neck side of the face remembering the intention cleansing the meridians I've done this with little kids and one of the little kids said it feels like I'm raking leaves I'm raking out stuff that's a beautiful image if that's an image that really speaks to you you can go with that another little kid said I wanted power wash I want to use the hose so those images can be really helpful to help move your energy whichever image speaks to you and continuing up the back of the hand back of the arm shoulder side of the neck side of the face let's do three more sets with the off-body contact side of the neck side of the face back of the hand arm shoulder blade side of the neck side of the face back of the hand arm shoulder blade side of the neck side of the face back of the hand arm shoulder blade side of the neck side of the face one more time each side back of the hand arm shoulder blade side of the neck side of the face back of the hand arm shoulder blade side of the neck side of the face so we've done all 12 meridians in groups now let's do them as a continuous flow we're going to start where we started before inside corners of the eyes and you can choose whether you do physical light contact or you focus on the energy contact but let's start at the inside corners of the eyes get book go up over the top of the head and down the back of the neck down the back of the body and the hamstrings out the pinky toe side of the foot and we're gonna come up the inside on the inside of the big toe inside of the leg coming up the center of the body and spreading wide at the heart and then out the armpit on one side down to the palm and pinky side other side from the armpit out the palm and pinky side and then coming up the back of the hand back of the arm shoulder blade side of the neck side of the face back of the hand shoulder blade side of the neck side of the face let's do it again inside corner of the eyes up over the top and cascading down the back of your body all the way to the pinky toe side coming up the big toe side flowing up through the center of the body spreading wide at the heart out the palm side the armpit side to the palm and pinky side of the hand and then the other side and then turning the hand over coming up the hand the back of the hand back of the arm shoulder blade side of the neck side of the face other side shoulder blade back of the side of the face and we're back at the beginning one more time inside corner of the eyes up over the top of the head down the back of the body half the pinky toe side up the inside of the foot rising up the inner leg rising up the core spreading wide at the heart going out the armpit the palm side going out the other armpit to the palm side coming back up the back of the hand shoulder blade side of the neck side of the face the other side back of the hand shoulder blade side of the neck side of the face and then pause standing with your hands relaxed by your sides and just get a feel for that circulation that circulation that unending circulation is moving continuously whether we're awake or asleep whether or not we're conscious of it being conscious of it can bring a little more movement to it and we can even do it here with our eyes closed without moving the physical body so just keep your hands resting at your sides and imagine the energy rising up from the inside corners of your eyes going over the top of your head down the back of your body down through the backs of the legs out the pinky toe side of the foot feet and then circulating up the inner feet inner legs coming up the core of the body and spreading wide at the heart coming out both armpits both palm and pinky sides of the hands coming up the backs of the hands back to the arms shoulder blades side of the neck side of the face in that energy continuously circulating as we're standing walking talking through our day-to-day life and then go ahead and gently open your eyes and let's come down to seated you can sit in a chair if you like or you can sit on the floor if you're sitting directly on the floor just make sure your knees are a little lower than your hips if you're sitting like this this is hard on your low back we're just gonna do a little bit of movement here while seated the main thing is you should be comfortable if it hurts if you can't breathe then shift it maybe get another pillow or another couple of couch cushions so your booty is up higher so that you can find your way into breathing softly so the movement here we're gonna take our rib cage and basically take our rib cage in a circle so I don't know if you've ever done belly dancing I never have but I imagine that this is kind of a belly dancing move so take your rib cage over to one side shift it forward as you shifted forward your arch your back a little bit like you're sticking your booty out behind you shift it to the other side and then shift the rib cage back side forward other side back so just going in one direction for a few cycles here forward other side back now if you're like me and you've been sitting way too much over the last months this is gonna be a little creaky that's okay just go to where the amount of movement that feels good if you notice you're breathing like this you're going too far always check in with your breath and now that you've got it the direction going instead of doing that really square try to make it a little rounder side forward connects to side and goes back connects to the other side forward side back that's right now if you pay attention to your tailbone you might notice that your tailbone is drawing a little circle going the opposite direction of your ribs if that feels completely confusing good don't try to make your tailbone do the circle just notice as I take my ribs over here my tailbone is going the other way that's weird okay and then come back to center and let's go the other way side I'm gonna go back other side forward as I come forward I'm sticking my booty out as I go to the side this hip gets heavy this hip gets light as I go to the back I'm tucking my tailbone now this booty is light this booty is heavy so a few times doing it really square and breathing and noticing where you're creaky and again if there's hitches in the movements try slowing down try to feel a little more do a little less oh moaning and groaning is absolutely allowed and then round it out same direction just more of drawing circles with your torso it can be slow or it can be slower it's not about how many repetitions you do how much can you feel oh how much can you breathe again moaning and groaning especially when you get to the tight spots there might be a place where you kind of tempted to moan you can get away with it that's one of my favorite things about taking zoom yoga is I can moan and groan as much as I want I'm usually the groaner in a yoga class because it feels so good but now I don't have to worry about people going oh god the groaner is here and come back to the center take a pause I'm gonna cross my legs a little bit more sit up a little taller and then sticking my booty out I'm gonna come forward a little bit with a slightly arched back now for those of us who are very stable in the hips this might be as far as you come you might even have your hands on your knees for those of you who are really gummy in the hips you may come further forward you may come down to your forearms you may flop your chest all the way to the floor how nice for you those of us who have more stability in the hips I like to say stability because I yeah I prefer that to tight will stay up a little higher check in with your breathing if you're feeling so much of a stretch that you're breathing like this back off a little bit you can let your chin drop towards your chest a little bit and we've been keeping an arch in the low back but now we can start to let the background maybe let the upper background maybe even the mid background all to where it feels like a yummy stretch in the hips I feel it for myself a little bit more and the leg that's where I have the shin in front but it may be different for you depending on your structure and your tightness and then I'd like you to just explore taking your heart and your hands over towards one knee and feeling your way into something that feels good so you may feel the stretch if you're taking your hands to your right you may feel the stretch on the right on the left hip you may feel it in the outside of the right hip all breathable all kind of delicious that you can sink into and slowly walk your hands back to center and try taking your heart to the other side oh my goodness oh now I know why I went to that other side first find the place where you feel a breathable stretch and do that breathing thing you can let your chin drop you may even want to try turning your head a little side-to-side to find a stretch into the neck if that feels right remember you're the one inside your body so you may find a little shift a little change of position that brings you into deeper broader yumminess and slowly bring your hands and your heart back to the center walk your hands in and slowly come up to seated lean back a little bit and uncross the legs and recross them with the other shin in front and just like the other side we're gonna scooch our feet across each other a little bit bringing the thighs a little bit more into parallel sit up tall a little arch in the low back slight feeling of sticking the booty out and tilt forward from the pelvis oh I'm much more stable on this side I can barely reach the floor so I'm gonna hang here but again some of you were undoubtedly more pliable in the hips wherever you are check your breathing relax your chin a little towards your chest notice if you're looking up here that it's really crunchy on the neck if you're working on a laptop doing all your zoom days on a laptop that's already going to be crunchy so bring a little space in there by letting the chin drop slightly as you hang out here for a few minutes or hours you'll feel that that connective tissue will soften up and you'll be able to tilt forward a little which more so let the chin drop towards the chest you can let the upper back round now and maybe the mid back can round maybe your hands are still on your legs but coming to your comfortable forward-foldy position notice how it's different than the other side because we are not symmetrical beings we have wonderful asymmetry that allows us to find beauty and balance in that asymmetry still breathing and then try exploring your heart and your hands over towards one thigh one knee and checking your breathing making sure the breath is soft your jaw is soft even your eyes are soft you may want to explore the movement of your head and then slowly coming back towards the center oh and over towards the other side Wow see I didn't realize that this left side was so much tighter oh so I actually need to back off a little bit because it's getting out there now I can breathe and I can relax a little more sometimes in yoga we get the idea that going deeper and opposed is better as an anatomy nerd who's explored this and through my clinical experience too I would I would I would love to argue that dispute that instead of deeper is better feeling more is usually more better and slowly coming back to the center with your hands and with your heart and pressing your way up to a seated position lean back a little bit take the legs out wide and just kind of turn your center a little side to side sitting up tall for those of us with very stable hamstrings sitting up tall may mean leaning back a little bit for those of you with very loose hamstrings you may want to come down on your forearms or elbows and just rock a little to get this movement in the hips come back to the center and we're going to scoot forward off of our cushion and I'm going to turn sideways and we're all going to come onto our backs oh okay that was the most abdominal work I've done in a while so on your back your knees bent knees pointing up towards the ceiling and your feet flat on the floor and your arms resting comfortably by your sides close your eyes and just take a moment to feel how you feel right now and in this moment bring your awareness can you bring awareness to the energy coming up the inside the corners of your eyes over the top of your head flowing down the back of your body along the floor down the hamstrings out the pinky toe side of the feet coming up the inside of the feet inner legs rising up the core of the body spreading wide at the heart out both armpits towards the palm and pinky toe side of the hand and flowing back up the back of the hand back of the arm and shoulder side of the neck inside of the face that flow is still going on even when we've changed positions ah and we're going to free up the hips a little more so I'm going to straighten one leg out and bring the other knee towards my chest and take a hold of the knee or the back of the knee the knee pit with the hands and I'm going to take that hip focusing on the hip the inner and the outer hip taking that hip for an exploration of range of motion so I might go in circles I might change it up up notice if you're going really fast cut your speed in half and then cut it in half again when you go slower you can feel more and at first explore what's really smooth and easy in the hips and then as you get into the edges of movement you might find a tight spot a speed bump a hitch in the booty and you can pause there breathe there see if you can use your breath to soften the tight spots in the hips soften from the inside out and then continue your exploration and also notice if you're doing a set pattern try to mix up your pattern you want to get the hip moving as much as possible this is one of the most mobile joints in the body this the hips and the shoulders when we sit for a month on end we can lose some of that mobility motion is lotion for the joints come back to the center bring the knee uh take a hold of the back of the knee the knee right centered kind of aim towards your armpit you can bring the hands to the back of the knee inhale straighten the leg up towards the ceiling and lift the toes back towards your belly as you exhale bend the knee and draw it in towards that armpit inhale pressing through the heel you may even press into the backs of your hands or your palms with the back of the knee exhale hug it in towards the armpit so you're going a little wider than straight towards the chest inhale and that just gives you a deeper hip crease it also helps avoid the quarantine 15 that i got in my belly and then as you inhale release the foot back down to the floor and take a pause either with both knees bent or the legs out straight whatever feels most comfortable to you and feel the differences in your hips right now right now i feel like my the hip that i just did is longer that leg is longer and it's resting this side isn't quite resting so let's do the same on the other side bringing the other knee in and taking a hold of the knee or the knee pit and using your hands to guide that other hip through the full range of movements go for what's easy and smooth at first we are literally lubricating the inside surfaces of the joints with the movement we're stimulating the synovial fluid that makes the movement smoother and also also nourishes that cartilage deep in the joints notice if you're doing it really fast slow it down notice if you're doing the same pattern change it up and start to explore more towards the edges oh you find a time oh you find a tight spot see if you can breathe a little more softness into wherever that hitch is that tight spot energy follows your intention so have the intention of breathing right in there even though we know you don't have lungs in your hip joints the energy and your intention can reach down into the hip joints and then coming back to the center with that knee slide the hands around to the back of the knee inhale straighten the leg reach the heel towards the ceiling lift the toes back towards your belly as you exhale bring the knee towards the armpits hugging it in inhale pressing through the heel lifting the toes maybe pressing the thigh into the palms exhale knee towards the armpit inhale reach up through the heel lift the toes exhale and towards the armpit bringing the knee back to center gently releasing the foot down and take a rest either with the knees bent or the legs out straight whichever you prefer sometimes the legs straight can be a little pinchy in the low back if that's the case no harm in bending the knees ah now if your legs are out straight you can keep them out straight if your knees are bent straighten them out and if that hurts take one of those couch cushions or pillows and place it under your knees you can you can do this or you can have the legs flat i'm going to show it with the legs flat again whatever feels good you're going to sweep both hands up overhead so you're making a really long shape with your body and then we're going to baby step the heels i'm baby stepping my heels over to my left and i'm going to slide my head my heart and my hands over to the left so i'm making a letter c shape with my body and it's not a huge movement it's just a slight movement now this may be where we want to hang out some of you if you're going to the left you may want to take that right ankle and cross it over the left ankle if you want to feel a little deeper stretch than the outer hip if that sucks don't do it some of you may want to take the left hand if you're going to the left and take a hold of the right wrist or the right elbow and give a very gentle traction out if that feels good it might be hard to have the arm straight overhead so you may take the arms more in a v and tip that v over to the left side so we're going to stay here for about a minute and a half just feeling a very gradual stretch through the whole right side of the body the right armpit getting the right ribs to fan open a little bit hopefully feeling a little space happen between the bottom of the ribs and the top of the right pelvis stretching the outer right hip and you may even feel a stretch into your it band your it band is on the side of the thigh it's challenging to stretch but this is one position that can stretch the it band and breathing now if you do this at home without being led use a timer and set the set the beeper because you want to stay in it an equal amount of time on both sides i accidentally fell asleep in this pose for 32 minutes on one side and i had to do and i had to do 32 minutes on the other side because we want to release both sides for an equal amount of time it's a low intensity stretch for a really long duration helps to loosen and move the fascia the connective tissue but we're also opening the sides of the rib cage on the outside of the body getting into the liver and gallbladder meridians and the liver and gallbladder meridians in chinese medicine regulate the smooth flow of chi the smooth flow of blood and the smooth movement of emotions and if any one of those is not moving is stagnant then it can stagnate the others and it's probably one of the most common diagnoses in chinese medicine is liver chi stagnation so if you cross the leg over uncross slowly walk your heels back to center bring your hands your head your heart back to center and bring your hands down along your sides and just take a pause there and feel the changes you might feel like that side that you're just stretching is much longer it is if you were to get up and walk right now you would walk with a limp in a circle because you've really lengthened some core muscles out some core fascia out oh it's time to do the other side raising hands up overhead again baby stepping the heels to the other side keeping the body flat so your tailbone is swinging a little towards the other side too and then taking the hands the head the heart towards the other side so you're doing the opposite c position now if you were going to the right side you might want to explore crossing the left ankle over the right ankle if that feels good you can hang out there you might take the right hand and take a hold of the left wrist and give a gentle traction out through the wrist and arm or not that might be too much on your shoulder you might need to take the hands a little wider apart we're going to be here for about a minute and a half to let the fascia release so that liver chi stagnation one of the symptoms is the the emotion of feeling frustrated and being frustrated can also stagnate your liver chi and one great thing about the liver and gallbladder meridian and getting the chi the energy to move is the the best thing you can do is to move to physically move your body to move your energy and to move your emotions to let your emotions express i think that's part of why i'm having pixar therapy because the those movies not only am i laughing hysterically but i'm also fighting myself crying as i'm uh in the in the process in the emotional state of the movie and uh this is a time where i really need to let all of my emotions move and express to not hold down and hold in what may be considered bad emotions i need to to i need to feel it all and express and uh breathe it all in and out another 30 seconds or so here the other thing i love about this pose is not only are you opening the ribs and liver and gallbladder meridians crisscrossing the ribs but opening the ribs helps the breath move in and out more and our breath especially the diaphragmatic breath is what's going to help us practice turning off the fight or flight response and we need to practice society even in normal times the culture really likes to practice the fight or flight response and we need to practice the rest and digest response getting to the place of yes i am safe so if you cross your legs up uncross them bring them back to center bring your hands head and heart back to center and then the arms down along your sides and take a pause here and then bending the knees take your pillow and bring it right beside your hip you're going to press down with your hips lift up a little bit and slide that pillow underneath your hips and then slowly straighten the legs out as much as is comfortable you may keep your feet a little flat on the floor or you may straighten your legs all the way out we're just going to stretch the psoas the hip flexors here for about a minute take a few deep belly breaths while you're here you may feel remember if it's uncomfortable if it's pinchy in the back just bend the knees a little bit and place the feet on the floor we want to get a little stretch in the psoas which is on the front side of the spine crossing the hip and attaching on the thigh bones way on the inner upper thigh bones femurs and then if you straighten your legs out go ahead and slide your feet in press down with your feet and lift your hips push the pillow towards your heels and lower your pelvis all the way down and then bring your legs out straight so the backs of your knees come on to the pillow or bolster and then breathe into your low belly take five slow deep belly breaths and you can choose to stay here doing another five deep belly breaths and you may even choose to stay in a shavasana afterwards but i'd like to thank you for coming to class please keep breathing keep breathing namaste