Unlocking Your Voice

Hey Yogis, welcome back on Yoga Anytime with Miles Barrero. Today we are going to explore our voices and connecting our voices to the deepest, most essential part of ourselves, which I sometimes think of as our backbone. A lot of us have trouble articulating stuff. A lot of us have trouble expressing our needs, our desires, and this practice is a practice that will help us sharpen our ability to speak. And as we sharpen our ability to speak, hopefully we will also sharpen shravanam, which is our ability to listen, because they're the same, they're different sides of the same coin, right?

So that's the, that's the hope today. Start standing. You won't need any props for your practice today. Oh, excuse me, you will need one block. Also have that off to the side and start standing at the back of your mat, separate your feet hips distance apart, close your eyes and you can rest your dominant hand over your less dominant hand, like a little soap dish in front of your navel.

Feel your feet on the ground. Let the nose come in and out, the nose, let the breath come in and out through the nose and start to create that rumble of the ujjayi breath. In terms of the sound of the breath, the breath speaks to us with its own voice and it says so hum, which is the Tibetans have translated as I am that I am and you might start to feel that the inhale sounds like a so and the exhale sounds like a hum. So you're already in communion with yourself to a large degree, which is so awesome. From there, open your eyes and find a place about a foot and a half in front of you.

We're going to take a gentle walking meditation toward the front of your mat. The only instruction is to pay attention. We're going to take a gentle walking meditation toward the front of your mat. Once you get to the front of the mat, close your eyes for a moment. See how you feel and notice what that gave you and then open your arms out to the side just a little bit as if you were going to give somebody a hug.

And then we're going to take a slow walk backwards toward the back of our mat. Notice what happens when you start to walk backwards. Notice how there's a sense of almost like you're coming back into your backbone, into your spine. Like you're checking out a huge theater or looking out at a gorgeous landscape. I don't know if you feel that, but I feel that Shushumna Nadi, that central channel of the body, very sort of steadfast and present there and now walk forward with that.

So it's almost like you're walking from the back of you forward toward the front of you. Can you bring the back body with you? Can you be in your backbone as you walk forward? And then one more time just to have that experience of tracing your backbone. When you walk back and land in your center.

This reminds me, I don't know why, of Suniti. I feel like she would love this practice. If you don't know her, you should check her out on the site. Let your arms drop down by your sides. And now with that experience of your backbone, come to sit on a block.

You can choose how you sit. You could also sit on a blanket, but sit up nice and tall so that your frame is spacious for the breath. We're going to move together through one of my all-time favorite practices. It's called a Bija mantra. Bijas are like little seeds.

They're seeds of sound. And it's like a gong when you strike a gong, that sound that the gong makes, the gong vibrates everything in that range. And the vibration brings energy. It brings space. It brings new life.

So we're going to vibrate that backbone, that central channel of the body, the shishunanadi. It runs energetically along the front of your spine. And really, all you have to do is let the sound live in your mouth, and it's almost like you're masticating it, like you're luxuriating in the vibration of it. And you don't have to do anything. All you have to do is allow for the sound to do you, for the breath to do you.

Bring your palms to your heart before we begin. We'll start with what I call a sea of ombs. So we'll just om at our own pace. You don't have to follow me or wait for me until we're good and ready. And at some point, it'll come to an end.

Trust that everything has an ending, which we know is true. Deep inhale. Om Keep going at your own rate. Don't forget the M. The M is the yummiest part. Om Om Om Om Om You might feel the reverberation of the little seed, om, the essential mantra, the mantra that we all carry within us.

It lives inside of us. All we need to do is pluck it like we're plucking a cello string. And you might also sense that your soft palate, which is the roof of your mouth, you can trace it with your tongue, has slightly lifted almost as if you had a little wicked smile, making space for the sound. That wicked smile might also make your eyes sparkle a little bit, even though your eyelids are closed. That wicked little smile is potential energy, is anything that could happen.

Now bring your awareness to the base of your spine, to Muladhara Chakra, it's our sense of survival, or where our survival lives. See if you can picture a yellow cube there at the base of the spine. And this is the chakra that's attached to our sense of smell. And the seed mantra that belongs to the chakra is lam, with an L, lam, you can say it, lam. And that the seed is kind of ringing that cube there at the base of your spine, listen.

Find me whenever you want. Let that die down. Let that die down and simply be with a residue. And then bring your awareness up the spine a little bit to the space right under your navel, Swadisthana Chakra. Imagine a silver crescent moon in that space.

This is the chakra that has to do with our desire, is related to our desire and our needs. And the sense attached to it is taste. The sound is vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam. Vam, vam, vam, vam, vam, vam. Vam, vam, vam, vam, vam.

let that melt and we'll see what that has begun to poop in and then move your awareness up to your solar plexus right under your ribs there's a big bundle of nerves that lives there a big part of your vagus nerve is there it attaches to your diaphragm it helps regulate your autonomic nervous system manipura chakra this is where your sense of eye lives the ego or what the yogis used to call the asmita in a downward-facing red triangle and the sound is a ram light is the sense that's attached to it ah Let that melt away and draw your consciousness up to your heart center, the anahatha chakra, this is related to our sense of touch, anything that extends out of the center when you touch someone with your hands, you're actually touching them with your heart. And the shape is a blue pointed star, a five-pointed star that's blue. And the sound is yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, Let that melt away, move your consciousness up to your throat. The Ajna, I'm sorry, Vishuddhi, not Ajna, we're not there yet. Vishuddhi chakra. This is everything that is spoken, and also everything that has not been spoken. It's related to our sense of hearing. And you can imagine a black oval in that space. The sound is hum hum hum hum hum hum hum hum hum hum hum hum Let that melt away. And now move up to the space behind your eyebrows, the third eye center, the Ajna chakra, the seat of your intuition or the seat of your intuition. And there are no more senses left. So really this chakra is all the senses turned inward and you can imagine a winged circle there.

That sound is om. Om. Let that melt away. Bringing your awareness to the top of your skull, what I like to call the whale spout. You can imagine a thousand pedaled lotus there.

The journey up the spine was the journey up through our senses, each and every sense, and then all the senses drawing in, and now the senses draw up and out through the whale spout. This is the Harasra chakra. You feel your energy like a fountain coming up from below, from down, and your Muladhara chakra all the way up through each and every single chakra. The breath now being the soul thing, the touches and dings, those little vortexes bring some vibration to it. And can the top of the fountain funnel up through the head and out, softening all the edges, softening all of the ideas around ourselves, who we think we are, who we want to be, who we are right now currently, holding the awareness that we are the drop and we are the ocean simultaneously.

You're welcome to stay up in your seat and enjoy this time with yourself. If you'd rather come to Shavasana, now's a good time to lay down. And we'll let the ahata, which is the the unstruck mantra, the unstruck cord, you can think of it as silence live in this space, in these walls of your body, within the sound of the ocean, of your breath. That's so hum. It's not telling you who you are, it's simply who you are.

It's an expression of the thing itself. It's not telling you who you are, it's telling you who you are, it's telling you who you are. It's telling you who you are, it's telling you who you are, it's telling you who you are. It's telling you who you are, it's telling you who you are, it's telling you who you are. Deepen your breath.

You can lengthen your inhales, bring your hands onto your heart, whether you're seated or laying down, and not together on your heart, but on your heart. A lot of our, well not a lot of our truth, truth lives in silence. If we can get still enough, it will make itself known, and then in turn we will be more articulate with it in a way that still has a hymns in sight, in a way that does the least amount of harming, but is still direct. Inhales together, deep inhale. Love and light to all beings everywhere, no exceptions.

Thank you so much Yogis for joining me.