Day 14: Rooted in Love

Hello. Welcome to day 14 of Trust the Connection. A cue that I often use is Notice What You Notice. And it's a cue that a lot of teachers use. Notice What You Notice, what is happening here at this moment in your own experience. And there are really big kind of broad cues. But the intention is to bring you in to you and to your unique way of being here. It's like what Arturo said in his last practice that we are different. We are different from the structure of our skeletons on out. And how can we, in these group classes, really honor that? And I find, in my own experience, that when I get to be myself, I am connecting to joy. When I get to be who I am here to be with all of the causes and conditions in this body and what I was born into, when I get to really explore that and be that, it allows for a feeling of happiness. So a couple of things that I'm thinking about lately. One is that in that cue of Notice What You Notice, it is very, very, very complex. There's a beauty in being willing to meet what lives here, a willingness to meet what lives in this body, and a willingness to meet what is here in this world. It's so amazing and so complex. And what I'm working with is how can I be with that complexity of all that lives here and be rooted to love. And love is, the quality of it is actually quite simple. Love yourself, love each other, love this earth. And if we were all rooted to that, imagine how different our world would be. Imagine how different our leadership would be if it was rooted to love. So one of the ways that we'll play today is one in showing up with this willingness to meet ourselves and to meet our own experience and to meet our own uniqueness, our way of being here, and to move like ourselves. And then two, to root all that we find in love, in kindness. And one of the sweet things about love is that it can open the door to joy and it can open the door to gratitude. And that's really good medicine. It's really good medicine. So we have our eyes open, or if you don't, please allow your eyes to open and begin to look around your space or sense around your space until your eyes rest on something that is beautiful. Find something that moves you. Oh, yeah, that's beautiful. And then let your eyes rest there. And you can do this with any sense. So don't, you know, try it again and again and try it with different senses.

And now let the beauty come to you. So you're receiving the beauty. Like I'm looking at this beautiful plant and I've worked at this studio for about 10 years. So I've seen this plant grow from a babe and I'm letting myself receive. It's very intimate. And that's the beauty of showing up for your experience, this willingness to meet, that is intimacy. That's beautiful. Let's do it one more time. This is a practice you can do anytime, anywhere. So you let your eyes move around. And again, resting on something that's beautiful. And then you let it come in. You let yourself be met. Define that intimacy of letting it in. It's so sweet for me. Okay. And now we're going to go into our body and kind of in the same way where you're just going to dive in, into the inside, see how you're feeling, how you're doing, what's up here. And go in with the same kind of curiosity. Can I go in and be with what is amazing, with what is beautiful or like Alana offering this wonder. Be with the wonder of what lives here. And now connect to breath and begin to find some seated cat cows. So you'll want to be sitting up high enough that your pelvis can move. And so I'm on a blanket, but if you're here and you're starting to rock and oh yeah, my pelvis doesn't want to move, then you might need a little more height and you can sit on a chair as well. So we'll be moved by the breath. And again, this willingness to meet what lives here, all that lives here, all that complexity and rooting that complexity in the simplicity of love. Be with the breath, let the breath move you. Might even feel good to sigh. And let's find center and begin to roll through the ribs. You're making circles with your rib basket as we did with Arturo in his last class. Oh, feels so nice. Creating some mobility here in the whole rib. I like to call it a basket, rib basket. Holding all of its contents and then we're going the other way. You might find that the whole spine is participating. And we'll find neutral. Make your way towards all fours. And once on all fours, begin to move through your spine. So this could be cat cows. It could be some side to side or some circles. And again, my invitation for you is to move like yourself, being held by this container of all fours. You might find needing to come to forearms and be with the creative gesturing of your torso. It's a creative movement. Gesturing into space. Follow what feels nice. And now come to a neutral spine. All your curves get to be there. Begin to reach your right leg back behind you, still maintaining a neutral spine. And notice all the strength in the belly required to be here. We'll inhale. On an exhale, bring your knee to your nose and round your spine. And then inhale, we'll come back to where we just were. So lengthening the spine, lengthening the right leg back. Exhale, knee to nose, rounding the spine. Inhale, lengthening it back. Take your time. Exhale, drawing it in. Inhale, lengthen.

Keep the right leg long, but bring the ball of the right foot down. Bring your right heel down. Bring your left shin to the side. Reach your right arm up towards the sky and reach your right arm up and over your head, lengthening the whole right side body. And then we'll come back to all fours. Wiggle out your tail a little bit. And find neutral spine again. Let's reach the left leg back. Inhale. Exhale, bring your knee to your nose. Inhale, lengthen back to where you just were. And exhale, knee to nose. Inhale, lengthen back to where you were. Bring the ball of your left foot down. Bring your left heel down to the floor, right shin to the side, left arm up towards the sky, and then left arm up and over your ear, allowing for length through the whole left side body. Bring your left hand down and find your downward facing dog. So there's a willingness to meet what lives here. It's showing up for your experience. I'm tethering yourself. What do you want to tether yourself to? Curiosity, love, wonder. Make your way towards a standing forward fold. Bend your knees and begin to roll up your spine until you are standing. Bring your hands together in front of your chest and rub them together. And now bring your hands to your shoulders and begin to brush down your arms. And you'll do that again. Brush down your arms. And now we'll do that to our whole body. So you can touch different parts of your body and brush down. You can brush up. So your hands are touching. And as you touch, notice how your hands change shape. Your body is so round. It reminds me of being at the river and touching all the round river rocks. My body is soft and round. And now as you touch, come back to that experiment of noticing what is beautiful and receiving all of that beauty. It is a miracle. A total miracle to be here with these incredible bodies, which really are so mysterious. Even with all we know, so mysterious. So we're touching, appreciating all of our curves, roundness. Feel into your head. And then make your way towards the steady Tadasana. And notice your skin. Your skin looks out into the world. Your skin looks in. So here's that tending to the inner and the outer. And now a very brief reflection on what might get in your way of appreciating yourself. What gets in your way of celebrating yourself? What gets in your way of loving yourself? And then we'll bring our hands to our shoulders and kind of do more of a brush. Like you're cleaning your skin. Like, okay, what if I could just let that go? Maybe we don't know what it is, but we're like, yeah, there's something there. Sometimes gets in my way from celebrating myself. Loving myself. One more time, brushing down. And then lift your arms up. Feel into all of your legs. Experiment with lifting your heels up off the ground. Then we'll drop the heels, drop the arms and find a little shake. And with this shake, have a sense of letting go. Shaking off. It's like if you've been carrying around a really heavy bag and you're going to take some of those rocks out of the bag, some of the contents out of the bag to maybe allow for a little more lightness. So this is your shake. So you're finding the rhythm that feels most nourishing for you.

Have a sense of shaking all of your skin. Oh, 360 degrees. All of your skin shaking. Your face. Your back. Shaking the armpits and the inner thighs. All the places that are so often in shadow. And if it seems reasonable, you'll shift your weight and do a stomp on the ground with one foot. Again like that. Shifting your weight. And a stomp. One more time each side. It's like you're claiming your spot. I get to be here. Stomp. And then a smaller shake like you're turning the volume down on your shake. Let it get even smaller. So quiet. And then we'll pause. And in the pause, notice any lightness. Like if you were really able to put something down. Notice where the lightness is in your body. And then bring yourself into a sway. So widen your feet as much as you want to. And sway yourself side to side. And we've done this together, I think, every class that I've taught. Because it is so resourcing for me. I do this every day, multiple times. I connect to an elemental time where I just soften away from the press of the clock. And enter into my own rhythm. So nourishing. So as you're swaying, are you a little bit more buzzy like a hummingbird? I feel a little bit like a whale today. Slow and steady and big. And buoyant and surrounded by the whole ocean. So how do you feel in your sway? And drop into it more and more and more and honoring of your own rhythm. Wiggle your tail. I loved all the tail wiggling, the moving of the pelvis in Miles' last class. And then we're going to come back to center.

Your feet can come underneath you. So we'll move through some familiar forms. And as we do that, I'm just going to invite you again and again and again to check in and make sure that you're honoring yourself, loving yourself, celebrating yourself. Open your legs nice and wide. Bring your hands to your hips and lengthen the front of the spine. Reach the crown of your head up and back and then fill up the front body like filling up a balloon through the front as you reach into the back. Fold forward, creasing deep at your hips and bring your hands to the floor. And now rock yourself side to side, bending your left knee, bending your right knee, side to side. Again, connecting to the fluid in your body. And then we'll take a quarter turn to the left. Organize ourselves here in a lunge. Bring your right knee down. I'm bringing my right knee down to a blanket. It just feels like a very kind action, kind offering. You can always fold your mat or if you're comfortable, of course, your knee can be down just on the mat. Okay, and then when you're ready, you're going to root down through your front foot and come up to a low lunge, rooting down into the earth so that your spine can still have a brightness and that creativity, a creative expression, creative gesture into space. And now bring your left hand down to your left thigh and reach your right fingertips up and over for a side bend. Couple of breaths here. Pull up your right side body as you reach your right fingertips to the left. And then we'll bring both hands down, frame the front foot and extend your front leg for a half Hanumanasana. My hips will never be the same after miles as last class. Appreciating some of that openness still. We'll let the pubic bones move back. Let's explore a long spine. Then again, just to check in, are you meeting yourself with the intimacy that you deserve? Find that willingness to meet yourself and then let it be rooted in love and curiosity. Be sprinkled in with some joy and humor. We'll bend the front knee, tuck your back toes, lift your back knee up off the ground, take a quarter turn to your right. So here we are back in that wide legged position. And then once again, rocking yourself to the left and the right, bending one knee at a time. These kind of movements often feel like I'm juicing up my joints. The reminder that our bones talk to each other through fluid. The joints are fluid. And then we'll take a quarter turn to the right, bend your right knee, lower your back knee down, adjusting your blanket as needed. Down into the legs, come up for your low lunge. Feeling into the little bit of a back bend here. Being with the rootedness of the legs, this creative gesture, expression of the spine. And then bring your right hand down to your right thigh, reach your left fingertips up and over, filling up the left side body as you reach your left fingertips to the right. And we'll come back and release both hands down, frame your front foot, let your hips go back. Slowing down to savor what is here. Slowing down to be with what is here. To be with all that lives here in the back of the legs, your pelvis. So complex and also so simple. Couple more breaths. Go ahead and bend your front knee, tuck your back toes, lift your back knee up off the ground. Take a quarter turn, we're coming back through center. This time we'll bend the knees with the heels in and the toes out and walk your hands up to your thighs, coming down nice and low. And then again, rock yourself a little side to side. Let the inner thighs lengthen towards the inner knees. And then we'll come down with the arms, but still in your goddess.

Let your arms go out wide to the side and up towards the sky. And then turn your palms down and bring your hands down right in front of your midline. And again, let the arms go out wide to the side and up towards the sky. And bring your hands down in front of your midline. A few more times, opening your arms up wide and then exhaling down through the midline. And again, connect to anything that you need to let go of and then just like let it go. Like with the arms, drop the arms at the end of the exhale. Arms go up and then down through the midline. And then again, just a drop of the arms, letting that go. One more time. And dropping the arms. Bring your hands back down to the floor, bring your legs to parallel, lengthen your legs, fold forward over both legs. Lengthen your spine partway. And we're going to take a quarter turn to the left again. So coming back to your low lunge, bring your back knee down, left knee is bent, and then root down to rise. Some of us will want to stay here. Some of us, the back knee will feel fine with bending the right knee and holding onto the right foot. If there's any pain in your knee, it's just like not worth it. So you would keep the right leg extended. And then from here I'll let my front knee come forward a bit so the thighs are moving apart, but then drawing up through the low belly, rising up, finding length through the whole front of the spine. You can lift the left arm up, maybe both arms up. A few breaths here and even in all of the sensation, making adjustments, finding alignment, and then being rooted in curiosity and care. Release both hands down. And then one more time, you're half Hanumanasana, we're lengthening the front leg, letting the hips travel back. Slowing down to find some appreciation connecting to your amazing body. And we'll bend the front knee, tuck your back toes, lift your back knee up off the ground. Take a quarter turn, we're coming back through center. Legs are nice and wide and in parallel. And then once again, start to rock your legs by bending your left knee, shifting your spine and then bending your right knee, shifting your spine to that side to side a couple more times. Taking your time, being in your own experience, being with your breath. And as you're ready, take a quarter turn to your right, coming into your lunge, lowering your back knee down. Rise up for your low lunge as you're ready. And then again, if it is nourishing, you'll bring your left hand towards your left foot, bending your left knee. And then we can let the front knee come forward a bit, descending the pelvis, the right arm can rise if that is nourishing or maybe both arms are lifted. And then from there, we're exploring a little bit of a back bend, being curious about our own experience, connecting to breath, connecting to beauty. And when you're ready, we can release that, bring both hands down to frame your front foot and then begin to extend your front leg as much as is available for you right now. And then be with breath and be with movement. Notice how your pelvis moves as you breathe. Notice how your spine moves when you breathe. Go ahead and bend your front knee, tuck your back toes, lift your back knee up off the ground and take a quarter turn. You can move your blanket to the side. We'll lengthen up partway, fold forward, release the weight of your head, release the weight of your spine. And now lengthen the spine partway, shift your weight back onto your heels until your hands are light. Bring your hands to your hips, down through your feet, come all the way up and then heels in, toes out and bend your knees nice and deep. Bring one hand to your belly, one hand to your heart. And now consider what are you bringing in? What would you like to bring in? What quality is? More attention, more love, more kindness, more gratitude, just anything, more listening. What are you bringing in? And then come down nice and low, so finding some fire in your legs and your hips, release your arms down. Inhale, let your arms go out wide to the side and up and think of this like a gathering movement. So gathering up what it is you need. Exhale, bringing it down through your center, into your core and at the base of the exhale again there's that letting go. What is no longer serving you? Let your arms go out wide to the side so we're gathering and up. What is it that you need? And then bringing your hands down through center, storing it, bringing it into your core at the base of your exhale, you let go. And then several times like that. And you can simply trust in the movement. It doesn't have to be too heady. Simply trust that the movement and the breath will do its good work. Last couple times, maybe sit down a little bit deeper.

Maybe sit down a little bit deeper, showing up for your experience. And then push down into your feet, lift your arms out wide. Notice your whole size. And bring your hands down and walk your feet a little bit closer together. And then one more time, just a sweep of the whole body. Again, arriving for that appreciation. Sleeping, saying hello to all of your skin. Maybe some pressure on your head, maybe a little hello to your face. And then one more time, lift your arms up. One more time we'll shake. Your heels can come up for a little balance and then we'll drop the heels, drop the arms and shake. One more time. And of course, again, this is your shake. So you're just checking in. Does this feel nourishing for your joints? Does the volume have to be really quiet? Are you feeling more like you want to jump and really express? Sometimes I imagine that I'm like painting the walls. There is colorful rainbow paint on my body. So you feel it out. What's the quality of your shake today? I'm just kind of grounded. It feels centered. It's like the earth is like, come on, get down here. So now we'll do a visualization. If this is, you know, I like visualizing colors, doing color therapy. So you're going to inhale and imagine that you're inhaling sunlight through all of your pores. And exhale, go feel the down down down into the earth. Inhale sunlight, golden sunlight to all of the pores. Let it fill up your center. And exhale, connect to the ground might even feel good to sigh. Several times like that. So inhaling sunlight through all of the pores. Exhale feeling into the ground. Inhaling sunlight connecting to your skin, eating up the sun. Exhale into the ground. Couple more times.

Exhaling in the sunlight through the skin. And exhale connecting to the ground. Turn the volume of your shake down, let it get quieter and quieter, smaller and smaller and smaller until you pause. And then in the pause, again, notice any lightness. And in that lightness, we'll let our hands float forward in front of us and out wide. Float your arms up towards the sky and then forward and down. So now this is more improvisational, but you're going to move your arms in symmetry. So your arms are mirror images of each other, however you like. So you can bend your elbows, your wrists, your hands. And the only instruction here is that you move your arms in symmetry. And it might be that the moving of your arms affects your spine. It might be that your arms are moving independent of your spine. As you move your arms, feel into your unique way of being here, your own creative expression where you are creatively gesturing into space in symmetry. And now bring your arms in front of you and rotate your thumbs out and open them and then rotate your thumbs down and bring them together. And do that a couple more times and notice what the rotation does to your spine. And now continue to move your arms in symmetry, but add spiral. And when I add spiral, then my spine wants to get more involved and it feels a little bit more like there's a motion here. I've added some emotion to the motion. And now let it go into asymmetry. So let your arms do different things and they can continue to play with spiraling. They can continue to move your spine. And now as you move your arms, feel at the same time. So you're moving and feeling and again, connecting to this willingness to meet you. A willingness to meet what lives here. Moving your arms in your own creative expression, maybe even sprinkling in some pleasure and some joy. The joy of being able to be yourself and to be received. Last couple of breaths with this. And as you're gesturing into space, what if space was receiving your gesture? This can be really healing actually. So many of our creative expressions from being small children, it wasn't all the way received by our parents or communities. So gesturing and being received. And then we'll pause just a little shake, a little release of the tail. So how can we move now through a sun salutation and hold some of that same feeling of creative play? Let's try it out. So standing in Tadasana and already looking for your alignment, which will be different than my alignment. Where you're fully rooting down into the earth to be with that rebound that can come all the way up from the feet up to the crown of the head. And as you're ready, lift your arms up to the sky. Fold forward over your legs. Signing your own rhythm, lengthening up partway. Stepping back to a downward facing dog. Come on forward to plank. Lower down to your belly. Keeping the cues really simple so you can move in your own way. Rising up into low cobra. And lower down. Then a few times like that.

We'll do as Miles did in his last class where you'll come up to the pads of your fingers, elbows pointing up to the sky and you'll roll yourself up to your low cobra. And then roll yourself down. Again, rolling yourself up and rolling yourself down. A couple more times like that. Moving slow enough to notice and appreciate what is here. And then we'll release from that. Bring your hands underneath your shoulders. Tuck your toes, lift your thighs. Press down into your hands. Come up to plank and back to a downward facing dog. Pushing through both hands. Connecting to the ground. Letting the whole pelvis go up and back. And finding some balance here between your front body and your back body. My tendency is to put a lot of weight in my front. So I'm also going to include the fullness in my back body. Being more round, more full. And part of that is being able to experience more. So I'm not just overly flexible in the front, but I'm full and strong in the front as well. Okay, we'll inhale, exhale, bend your knees, step forward, standing forward, fold. Lengthen halfway. Fold forward. Rise all the way up to stand. Root down, rise up, arms skyward. And release your arms down. Pausing, noticing, listening, connecting to the willingness to be here and to be with all that lives here. Ah, we'll do that one more time. As you're ready, arms up. Keeping the cueing simple. Fold forward. Lengthen halfway. Be in your own rhythm. Downward dog. Travel forward to plank. Transition belly. Rise into your low cobra and lower down. Bring your hands slightly out, come to the pads of your fingers, elbows out, and then we'll lengthen the spine, rolling up low cobra and lowering down. Couple times like that. And lower down. Bring your hands underneath your shoulders, tuck your toes, lift your thighs, push down, press up to plank, and back to a downward facing dog. Balancing yourself between front and back. Balance between the right and the left sides. Be with your breath. And we'll bend the knees. Transition to the front of your mat, standing forward fold.

Lengthen up, part way. Fold forward. Come all the way up to stand. Lift your arms up to the sky. Down through both feet. And then tipping a little bit to the right, little bit back behind, little to the left, and little bit in front. And then reverse that. So you're going to release your arms. Wade did a variation of this. So creative and fun that Wade. And we're circling around, reversing the circle. And we'll come back through center and release your arms. Wiggle your tail, wiggle your body, finding movement throughout. And then push down through your feet to extend your legs. And in the stillness, we're still tending to all of the movement that is here. Lift your arms up to the sky. Fold forward. Lengthen halfway, and then back to a downward facing dog. Come forward to plank. And come on down to your belly. This time, once you're on your belly, we'll rest for a moment. So I like to rest by stacking one hand on top of the other and resting my forehead there. But you're also welcome to bring one ear to the mat and rest like that. So again, connect to the size of your body, touching and being touched by the ground. And imagine or feel into the size of this earth. And imagine or feel that that there is love, that that connection is love. Notice how your body is moving when you breathe. Be with the wisdom and the dance of breath. What is it like to offer your whole self to this ground? And what is it like to receive all of the support from this ground? So simple and so profound. Let's bring our hands underneath the shoulders and then come back to a child's pose. Breathing in and breathing out. Gently roll up and have a seat on your heels. Bring your hands. If this isn't comfortable to sit on your heels, you can always sit on a block or you can come sit on a chair. So make sure this is okay for your knees. We're going to bring the hands just slightly back behind. Bend your left elbow and hold on to your right elbow and bring your chin down to your chest and now roll your head to the right, allowing for a lot of length in the whole left side. Feel into the gliding, the gliding of the muscles long. And on the right side, the muscles are gliding short. And let your chin rest down towards your chest. Release your left arm and bring your right hand, hold on to your left elbow and roll your head to the left. And again, being with the side that is gliding into length and softening into the side of the neck that is gliding into shortness. Breathing all the way up into the upper lungs. And bring your chin down to your chest, release your hand, lift your head, rise up onto your shins, lift your arms up to the sky and find celebration pose. So we've released some of which prevents us from celebrating ourselves. So now we're opening up to celebrate all that lives here. Come back to all fours. And then once again, with some movements to the spine.

And we'll gesture through the spine. Again, can be catcalls, can be side to side, can be some circles, can be some spirals. I encourage you to follow what feels good. If you can feel what feels nice and pleasurable, follow it. It might feel good to rest in the form of the familiarity of cat-cow. You honor that. And then again, I'll give this cue, this offering that we are creatively gesturing into space. We are moving in our own unique way. It's really profound to be here as ourselves. And then as you're created gesturing into space, have a sense or imagine that space is receiving you. Like if that was your audience and you were performing, it's like, oh, this warm, loving receptivity of your creativity. This can be very nourishing, very healing. And then one more time, resting down into child's pose or we fold into ourselves. Find a nice big inhale, exhale through the mouth with the sigh. Do that a couple of times. Inhaling through your nose, exhaling out your mouth with the sigh. Do that one more time. And we'll slowly start to come on up. Make your way to your seat and then transition onto your back. But go ahead and take your time so we can find some tone and strength in our belly. And once you are down, we'll pause here and construct a rest with the knees bent and the feet on the floor. And this is actually a really great place to start to feel into what neutral spine is. So we are very round beings. Nothing is straight in our bodies. Feel into your own curves, your own roundness and all of that moves with each breath. So the whole body moves with the respiratory rhythm. Notice what parts of your spine are touching the floor, what parts are not touching the floor. Take me into your chest. Cross your right ankle over your left thigh and flex your right ankle. Bring your left knee into your chest. You're welcome to keep your left foot down to the floor if you're already in a stretch sensation. It might be that you're bringing your left knee in and then you can wrap your hands around the back of your left leg. And then we'll feel the weight of the arms. So we don't have to like push. We're not trying to get anywhere. That's actually one of the things that can get in the way of intimacy. If we're always one step ahead of ourselves or many steps ahead of ourselves. So dropping into this moment, feel the weight of your arms, the external rotation of the right leg. Notice the weight of your head and the release of the muscles of your face. It might even feel good to flutter out your lips. It might feel nice to wiggle out your tail a bit. It might feel nice to sigh. Okay, and then we'll release the left foot down and release the right foot down, pausing to notice the difference between the two sides. And we'll come into the second side. So hug your left knee into your chest. Externally rotate your left leg, cross your left ankle over your right thigh, flexing the left foot. And then the right knee will come into the chest, holding on to the back of your right leg. Notice what it's like to move with the breath. Feeling the weight of your arms dropping into this moment. A willingness to meet this moment. Maybe wiggling a little side to side.

Last couple of breaths. Then we'll release the right foot down and the left foot down on both knees into the chest. Send your legs over to the right for a supine twist. Still connecting to your body, making contact to this ground, offering, offering your weight, receiving support. And we'll come back through center and find the other side. Again, offering your weight and receiving support. And gently come back to center, hug your knees in, extend your legs out and come into your shavasana. Scanning your experience, noticing what's here. And anchoring that with love. Anchoring that with wonder, gratitude. Offer the weight of your body. Feel the weight of your body touching and being touched by this ground. And experiment with receiving all that is here. Begin to explore a bit of movement as you bring your attention to your breath. And again, let these movements be unique to you. And eventually, you'll let these movements bring you all the way up to a seated position. And then once seated, rub your hands together. Then bring your hands to your heart, diving into a deep appreciation, gratitude for this body and practice. We'll close today with a bow, bowing into all that we are devoted to, bowing into our lives. Thank you.