Curiosity

Welcome. In this practice, I'm going to invite you again and again to offer yourself attention and to be curious to get to know yourself. So when we are curious, it opens the door to wonder and to awe. And when we care for ourselves, when we tend to ourselves, when we offer our self attention, it opens the way or opens the door to love. So let's do a little experiment. So if you would bring your hands out in front of you and look at your hands and gather any first impressions. So when I look at my hands, I'm noticing the color of my hands, a little spotty, a little red. I'm noticing hands that have spent time in the sun, hands that are in their 40s. Okay, so first impressions and now bring your hands together and close your eyes and give yourself a little hand massage. And it's like you're letting the bottom drop out of those first impressions to feel something a little different, to feel something maybe that you have not yet felt. Notice what feels good, offering yourself some touch here. And now rub your hands together and bring your hands up to your ears. Listen to the sound they're making. Again, you're gathering some fresh impressions. Allow your hands to move just slightly apart to feel your hands' energy, your hands beyond your own skin. Now open your eyes again and look at your hands. And for me, they're a little different. They feel a little bit more filled with wonder, more than I initially perceived. So now place your hands on your heart and turn to yourself in a similar way and say to yourself, I am curious to know you. I am curious to know you. Offer your self-attention because your body is precious. Find a big round of breath here and bring your hands to your legs. Start to rock your pelvis forward to lengthen the front of your spine. Find a nice big inhale, a little back bend here. As you exhale, rock back and lengthen the back of your spine. Again like that, rocking forward, lengthen the front of your spine.

Exhale, rock back and lengthen the back of your spine. The next time you rock forward, let your arms travel out wide to the side, lengthening on the high diagonal. As you exhale, folding, rounding and bring your hands together in front of your heart so you're bowing. Again like that, inhale, rock your pelvis forward. Lengthen the front of your spine, reach your arms out, exhale, rock back, bring your hands together in front of your heart to find your bow. A few times like that, inhaling, exhaling, find your bow, bowing into your body, bowing into yourself, inhaling arms wide, opening up, find your back bend. Exhale, bowing, bowing with your whole spine, bowing into your life. Inhale, opening up, and bowing into your experience, into your body. Inhale, open your arms. This time, let's bring the left hand down and reach your right arm up and over for a side bend. Root down through your left hand to lengthen the whole body, right hand to lengthen the whole right side body. On an inhale, breath, come back to center, lift your arms up, and exhale, find the other side. Right hand down, left fingertips up and over. Inhale, breath, arms up, and exhale, release your arms down. Coming forward to all fours, and let's find some cat cows. Let your head and tail move up towards the sky, and as you exhale, root down through your hands and shins to round, and again lengthen the back of your spine. Continue like that, falling into the rhythm of your breath. Inhale, lengthen the front of your spine, and exhale, rooting down through hands and shins to lengthen the back of your spine. And again, inhale, lengthen the front of your spine. Exhale, lengthen the back of your spine. So a few more times like this, and of course this is pretty familiar posture for many of us. So gathering some fresh impressions by being curious. Curious to know yourself, curious to know your breath. Last time, inhale, lengthen the front of your spine, and exhale, round.

Find a neutral spine, tuck your toes down into your hands to find your downward facing dog. So feel your hands here, talking to the ground, touching the ground, relating to the ground. You might even sway a little side to side, and as your weight changes on your hands, of course, that will shift your whole body. So find a place that feels pretty balanced to you, and then root down through your hands so that your pelvis move up and back. And again, listening for breath, being curious to know yourself inside of this posture of downward facing dog. Let's find a nice big inhale. On an exhale, bend your knees, and transition to the front of your mat for a standing forward fold. Release the weight of your head. Bend your knees as much as you need to so that you can release the weight of your spine towards the ground. Rise all the way up to stand, lift your arms up towards the sky, root down into the ground, and reach up through your fingertips. Release your hands down. Start to shift your weight side to side. So you'll bring a little bit more weight into your right foot, then push through your right foot to bring a little bit more weight into your left foot, and allow this to be a sequential movement so your spine can sway, almost like your kelp in the ocean. Swaying, moving, but you still have roots connecting you to the ground. Finding movement, finding sway, and finding your own rhythm. And notice what it's like to connect to your own rhythm. What does that offer you? It's like we're settling beneath TikTok time to feel what is the rhythm of your body.

You're now bringing your hands together to once again, rub your hands together and find a steadiness in your legs. You'll find your weight on your right and your left foot. And then bring your hands up towards the sky and bring your hands towards your head and then towards your chest. And pausing for a moment, once again, listen. Once again, being curious to know yourself. And then as you're ready, release your hands down and inhale, reach your arms up to the sky. And once again, we'll bring hands to the top of the head and then down the body to the chest. And then this time, let your hands sweep down your belly and your legs all the way down towards the ground. And when you're ready, bend your knees, drop your tail, and go ahead and rise on up. Once again, touching your body on the way up until your hands lift up towards the sky. And bring your hands to your head, sweeping your hands down your body all the way down to a forward fold. And then rising back up, tracing your body on the way up, arms skyward. Last time, hands to your head, folding down, touching your body on the way down. Once you're down, lengthen your spine halfway and bring your hands to your shins, arriving for this contact of hands to shins. And folding down, step your right foot back to a lunge. And I'm going to use a blanket here, being kind to my knees. And then as you're ready, rising up to a low lunge. So once again, feeling the ground, and then begin to rise up through your fingertips, allowing a little bit of a back bend here. And in particular, allow the back bend to move behind your heart into your thoracic spine. Find a nice big round of breath here, and release your hands down. Tuck your back toes, lift your back knee, and take a quarter turn to your right. Bring your hands to the floor underneath your shoulders, and then allow yourself to fold. And now once again, we'll find a little sway. So you can bend your left knee, shift a little bit to the left, bend your right knee, shift a little to the right, and moving side to side like that. And let's let the spine sway once again, like being seaweed in the ocean. It's a sequential movement, whereas the feet push and the rest of the body can sway. And part of this is soft, soft, and soft, and part of this is softening or loosening, whatever it is we already think we know about ourselves. Swaying side to side. And the next time you sway over to your right, take a quarter turn to your right, release your back knee down. Once again, maybe adjusting your blanket so there's some support. And then rising up to your low lunge. Again, rooting down through your front foot and through your back shin to lift up through your fingertips. It's like you're reaching from the ground of your being, allowing your back bend to travel through your thoracic spine up behind your heart.

Find another big round of breath here, curious to know yourself here. And release your hands down. Tuck your back toes, lift your back knee, take a quarter turn to your left. We'll lengthen up halfway and then once again folding forward and once again returning to that little sway, shifting your weight to the left, shifting your weight to your right, letting there be a seaweed quality like seaweed in the ocean being moved by the waves. The next time you travel through center, we'll pause there, lengthen up partway, shift your weight onto your heels and bring your hands to your hips. With a nice big inhale, come all the way up to stand. Turn your heels in and your toes out, bend your knees nice and deep, coming into your goddess. Lift your arms out wide to the side and then push into your hands to lengthen your legs. Send your hands out in the high diagonal and maybe even find a little back bend here. Then we're going to bend both knees, drop down a little lower and find a little pulse with your arms, like a double pulse and then coming back up. Again, we'll bend knees, find a little swing, a little pulse in your legs and arms and we come back up. A few times like that, bending swing, so there's some momentum here. We come back up, bend your knees, find some momentum and up. Again, bending your knees, little momentum. We're back up, last time and we rise on up and bend your knees and find your goddess. Let's come down nice and low, find a few little pulses here, nice and low. Bring your hands together in front of your heart and release your hands down. Lengthen your legs and bring them back to parallel and come back to your little sway side to side. The next time you sway over to your left, take a quarter turn, lower your back knee down and rise up to your low lunge again. Bring your left hand to your left thigh and send your right fingertips up and over. Again, bringing your attention to yourself, offering yourself attention.

Release your hands down, tuck your back toes, lift your back knee, take a quarter turn to your right. Little sway side to side, letting your spine have its movement, have its sway. The next time you sway over to your right, take a quarter turn, lower your back knee down, rise up for your low lunge and bring your right hand to your right thigh. Send your left fingertips up and over to the right, exploring the lengthening of your left side body. Rise back up to center, arms skyward and releasing both hands down. Take a quarter turn, we're coming back to the left, lengthen your spine, bring your hands to your hips, send your weight into your heels and on an inhale breath, rising up. One more time, heels in, toes out, arms out wide and bend your knees. Find a little pulse and swing with the arms and we rise. Exhale coming down, inhale rising, exhale coming down, find a little momentum to lift and then bending your knees, finding your goddess hands to your heart, little pulses up and down. Release your hands down, lengthen your legs, bring your legs to parallel, fold forward, find your little sway. The next time you sway over to your left, take a quarter turn and we'll step the back foot forward to meet the front foot for a standing forward fold. Again, let's lengthen halfway and bring your hands to your shins and exhale fold. Rise all the way up to stand, so rooting into the ground to reach up, lengthening, reaching up from the ground of your being and bring your hands together in front of your heart. And once again, place your hands onto your heart, again pausing to listen, offering yourself attention, being curious, curious to know yourself, and releasing your hands down. Begin to shift your weight side to side, feel your weight pouring into your right foot and then pushing through your right foot to let weight pour into your left foot. And again, you can let your spine move. And again, we're letting our first impressions fall away or maybe letting the bottom drop out so that we can have some fresh impressions. As you pour your weight into one side, feel the filling and then pour your weight into the other side and the filling. And as you pour your weight into one side, the other side is getting lighter. So we're filling and emptying, filling and emptying. Now experiment with filling so much that the other foot becomes so light that it lifts and do that to the other side. So pouring, pouring, pouring until this foot is so light, it lifts kind of like a feather. And then we'll shift the weight into the left foot. And again, filling, filling, filling until you have lightness to lift this foot up. And we're going to start to circle through your right foot and ankle, circling, circling, circling, noticing your full range of motion and then reversing that other direction.

And place your foot down and just have the ball of your foot down and start to circle through your right knee. And of course, your right heel will be moving as well and your right ankle will be moving as well. But what's it like to draw a circle with your knee and then do that to the other direction. And then again, shifting your weight into your left foot and this time we'll find a circle through the right hip into the place where your femur bone meets your pelvis. And find a circle the other direction. And place your right foot down again to shift weight, pouring, pouring, pouring until your left foot is so light, it lifts, it hovers. And find some circling with your left ankle and foot, circling, circling, circling. And then other side. And placing your foot down, finding some circles with your knee. And coming into an experience with your knee. Perhaps finding some tending, some sweet tending, new ways of knowing this area of the body circling the other direction. I'm noticing that this circle is a little more challenging for me. And then we'll shift more weight into the right foot to once again hover the left foot up and we'll find some circles here now where the femur meets the pelvis.

In your hip joint. And going both directions. And releasing your left foot down. Bring your hands out in front of you again and start to circle your hands and your wrists. Again, coming into an experience. And then circling them the other direction. And rising up to feel your elbows.

A little circle of your elbows. And then we'll rise up into our shoulders. So circling your shoulders forward and up and back and down. And as your shoulders come down you can bend your knees. And then circling them again. And circling. Circling. Go both directions.

Okay and then bring your fingers forward. So you're going to circle, make a circle with your elbows in space. And then release them. So fingers curl forward like you're drawing a circle with your elbows in space and then the hands come down. One more time like that. Elbows reaching into space. And now fingertips. Fingertips forward and up and back and down. Knees bend and you can let your spine round. And then a couple of times like that.

Big circles with your arms and you can let your spine move. You can let your knees bend and then extend as your arms come up. And when you're ready, release your hands down to find your way to stand. Shift your weight again side to side and bring your weight into your left foot to hug your right knee into your chest. Send your right leg back. Reach back through your right toes until you find your way to warrior one.

Now listen for the echo of those circles. So feel into the life of your feet and your ankle joints. Letting them still have an aliveness to them. And into your knees and into your hips. Up through your spine, your shoulders, your elbows, your wrists, your hands. So there's this echo of the circles. A liveliness. A conversation. That is potentially beneath what you already know of this posture.

Come slightly forward on the diagonal. And notice this diagonal line from your torso all the way back through your back leg. And now begin to reach forward with your fingertips until more and more weight comes into your front foot. Keep reaching until your back foot leaves the floor for a very mild warrior three. We're still on a diagonal here. And bring your right foot to meet your left foot. Root down. Press down through your feet to lift up through both arms.

And bring your hands together in front of your heart. And then once again, place your hands on your chest. Listening. Offering yourself your attention. Reminding yourself that your body is precious. Find a big round of breath. And then shifting your weight again, side to side.

And the next time your weight is shifting over to your right foot. Allow your left foot to get lighter and lighter and lighter until your left knee travels up into your hands, towards your chest. And begin to bend your right knee. Reach back through your left foot. Reaching back and back. It's like your toes have some curiosity here to eventually touch the ground. Rise up into your warrior one.

Again with the echoes of those circles. So your feet. Finding the livingness there. They're touching and being touched by the ground into your ankles, your knees, your hips, through your spine. Shoulders, elbows, wrists and hands. Little bits of movement.

One more full breath. And then shifting forward on the diagonal. And reach forward through your hands to start to shift more and more weight into your right foot. Keep shifting weight until your left foot leaves the ground. A warrior three here on the diagonal.

And bring your left foot to meet your right foot. Root down through both feet. And then again lifting up through both arms. Up through each fingertip. As though there were eyes on your fingertips.

And you want to see the world with your fingers. And bring your hands to your heart. Once again hands to your chest. Pausing to listen. Release your hands down.

And inhale, lift your arms up to the sky. Exhale, fold forward. Inhale, lengthen part way, Ardha Uttanasana. And fold. And then again bringing your hands to your feet and start to roll up.

Touching your body on the way up. All the way up to touch your belly, to touch your chest, maybe touch your head. And lift your arms skyward. And again hands to your head. Tracing your hands down to touch your chest.

Your belly, your legs. All the way down to touch your feet. Maybe the floor. One more time like that. Rising up.

Gathering some fresh impressions. Being curious about yourself. All the way up to arms lifting. And then hands coming down. Touching, touching, touching.

One of the things here is that we don't have to start off loving ourselves. But the way we tend can reveal love to us. Bringing your hands somewhere on your body. Either your shins or the tops of your feet. And again feeling this tending care.

Care in your touch and care in your attention. Care that can reveal love. Bring your hands to the floor and we'll step back to a downward facing dog. In your down dog, begin to shift your weight a little bit towards your right hand and right foot. Push into your right hand to allow your right hip to travel up a little higher.

And now shifting your weight into your left. Left hand, left foot, push into your left hand. Let your left hip travel up a little bit higher. And then sway a little bit side to side. And begin to send weight to the inner hand, inner foot.

And send weight to the outer hand and the outer foot so you are getting a little curious. What's possible here? And traveling through center and what feels most balanced to you? What feels like the midline of your hands? What feels like the midline of your feet?

What feels most balanced? And in what you're finding to be balanced, can there still be movement? So you haven't locked yourself anywhere. You're still opening to fresh impressions. Still bringing curiosity.

And from here, let's come forward to a plank. And transition all the way down to your belly. Come to the tops of your feet and rise up into a low cobra. Lower down. And find that again.

So rooting down to the tops of your feet. Bring your hands root down and back to lift your head and chest up for a low cobra. And gently lower down. So rising up for your low cobra again. Find your breath. Be with your breath.

Experience your breath. Notice the little movements here because you are breathing. And gently lower down. Bring your hands forward out in front of you. And walk your hands in a little bit until your head and chest leave the floor.

Keep rooting down through the tops of your feet. And now look to your right hand. Hover your right hand up off the floor and start to send your right hand over to the left. And now turn your right palm up to the sky and begin to look up to the sky until you're in a twist here. So similar to a supine twist, except your right leg is extended.

And there's a lengthening here through the diagonals. Begin to reach through your right toes. And then bring the top of your right foot back to the floor until you spiral back onto your belly. And the right hand will eventually come back down your back to your starting place. Let's try the second side.

So looking to your left hand, hover your left hand up. Send your left hand over to the right. And then keep reaching through your left fingertips. Left palm up towards the sky until you find yourself in a diagonal. Lengthening to your left toes, left toes to left hand.

And then find your left toes. Start to reach, reach, reach into the top of your left foot, spirals to the floor. And you're going to come back to where we began. One more time each side. So right hand hovers, right hand to the left, right palm reaches up or turns up to the sky.

And then there you are in your twist. Reaching through your right toes, bring the top of your foot down to spiral back onto your belly back to where we began. Left hand hovers, left hand over to the right. Left palm turns open to the sky. There you are in your twist.

Reaching through your left toes, come to the top of your left foot, back to your belly, both hands down. A moment here to find your head and your chest, leaving the floor a moment in symmetry. Lower down, bring your hands underneath your shoulders and press back to a child's pose. Again a moment to fold into yourself, to bow into yourself. Listen, offer yourself your loving attention.

And gently begin to roll up and make your way to your seat. So I'm going to sit on a blanket here for Ardhamatsyandrasana. So we'll externally rotate the left leg and then send your right foot over your left thigh. And let's bring the right hand back behind, lift your left arm up towards the sky. Begin to twist to your right.

So we're twisting from behind the navel and then we'll keep twisting to bring the left elbow across the right leg. Firing from your low belly, through your solar plexus, through your heart, through your throat, maybe even twisting a bit with your eyes. Again include your breath. So you're finding movement, finding some freshness here, and maybe even some new ways to experience yourself. Releasing your spiral, coming back to center.

So I'm going to stack my knees, but another option would be to sit cross-legged with the right shin in front. Let's open the arms up wide to the side. Bring your right hand to the floor, left fingertips up and over to the side. Root down to your right hand to expand more through your left side and traveling back up to center. Begin to tip your hips forward, come forward, bring your hands to the floor and then allow yourself to fold.

Feel your breath and experience your breath. So experiencing the breath, it's like if you were watching rain from inside looking out a window, but then you step outside to feel the water on your skin, to hear it. So experiencing breath, it's like stepping outside versus looking outside from inside. Experience your breath. And as you're ready, begin to press into your hands to come all the way back up.

A moment to pause. And let's find the second side. So shifting back a little bit, releasing your legs and then we'll cross the left foot over the right. Bring your left hand down to the floor behind you and reach your right arm skyward and begin to twist from your belly up into your heart. You can cross your elbow or you can hold on to your leg.

Twisting through your throat, maybe even up into your eyes. And then again, finding a little bit of movement because you're breathing. Being really kind and gentle with yourself. Release from your twist. Coming back through center and then bringing your left knee over your right knee or organizing yourself so that your left shin can be in front of your right shin.

Now your arms travel out wide to the side. Bring your left hand down, right fingertips up and over. And then again, rooting through your left hand to allow your right side waist to lengthen, to open. In a way, it's like you're moving in many directions all at the same time. So down into the ground, over to the right, over to the left.

Feel the space back behind you. Again, another way to widen your impressions of yourself. We'll come back through center, bringing both hands down. Feel the little tip of your hips starting to come forward, bring your hands to the floor in front of you. And if it would be nourishing, then you can begin to fold forward.

And we're here for some breaths, being really generous with our attention. Offering your hips some time and space. Noticing movement in your belly because you're breathing. Last full breath here. Press down into your hands to come all the way up to your seat.

Shift your weight slightly back to unravel your legs and extend your legs out in front of you. Give them a little shake and transition onto your back. Hug your knees into your chest. Feel the weight of your arms and the weight of your legs. And send your legs over towards your right for a supine twist.

Send your left arm out to the side. Bring your attention to your breath. And again and again, offer yourself your loving attention. Again and again, be curious. What is happening here with your inhale?

What is happening here with your exhale? Come back through center. Hug your knees into your chest and again feel the weight of your arms and the weight of your legs. Send your legs over to the other side. Again bringing your attention to your breath.

And experience your breath. What happens when you inhale? What happens when you exhale? I am curious to know you. Come back through center.

Hug your knees into your chest. Find a happy baby pose. You can hold onto your ankles or you can hold onto your feet. Feel the ground beneath you. And your breath.

And hug your knees into your chest again. Extend your legs out in front of you. And let's explore a heel rock. So you might need to watch if this is new for you. It's like your heels are going to be glued to the floor and your legs will stay extended.

And then from your ankle joint, you'll flex and point your feet. So there's a rocking that's happening. And because my heels are in the same place and because my legs stay extended, then my whole spine begins to move. So what's curious to me about this movement is that everything is talking. So from my ankle joint, my whole body is moving.

Every part of my body is coming into conversation. My ankles talking to the long bones of my legs, talking to my hips, talking to my spine, my skull, talking to my shoulders, my arms. Everything's in movement. Find a couple more big rounds of breath here. Find a nice big inhale.

And on an exhale, let that go. The echo of that sometimes can feel like a little shining moment and beginning to settle here into your shavasana. You're welcome to keep your hands here as they are if it's comfortable for you, you can bring your hands to your heart. Bring your attention to yourself. Bring your attention to your body.

Because you are precious. Your body is precious. Bring your attention to your body because you are a miracle. Your body is a miracle. Connecting to some curiosity to know yourself. I am curious to know you.

Notice if that curiosity opens you to awe or wonder. And infuse this moment with your care. It's like you're infusing this moment with your love. Now allowing yourself to rest in open attention where you don't have to do anything, don't have to be anyone. Resting in the aliveness of you.

Bring your attention to your breath. Begin to explore a little bit of movement. And let's see as we transition back up to our seat if we can take some of the qualities of shavasana with us. So taking some curiosity with us, taking the mystery with us. Transition to your side body.

And then come all the way up to your seat. Once seated, let's bring hands together in front of the heart. And find a nice big inhale. And as we begin, let your hands travel out wide to the side. As you exhale, bring your hands together and find your bow.

Bowing into your body, bowing into your life. Find a full round of breath here in your bow. And coming all the way back up to neutral and release your hands. Thank you so much for practicing today.