Compassion

Welcome. In this practice I'm going to invite you to meet whatever arises with compassion. So let's do a little experiment and bring your hands out in front of you and bring one hand into a fist. So the fist is like all of your tensions, which of course could be physical tensions, could be psychological tensions, emotional tensions. They are knots that live in the body. And then take your other hand and place that all around your fist. So I'm interested in how these two are meeting. How am I meeting whatever is arising with my presence, with compassion, with love? And what I want to play with here is to feel where these two are meeting, to offer the fist, my soft, sweet embrace, and to experiment with letting the fist receive that contact. Ah, might be that nothing happens, might be that there's a little softening of the fist, a little bit of being seen, being heard, being touched. So let's slowly release that and we'll just do that again and again. Meeting whatever is arising with compassion. Release your arms down and lift your arms up to the sky. Start to twist over to your right and release your arms down. Let's bring the left hand across over the right leg, right hand back behind, and find a couple of breaths here to spiral. On your next inhale, come back to center and lift your arms up to the sky. Exhale, twisting to the other side, turning towards your breath. In a way, letting the breath do the work for you here. And we'll come back to center, lift your arms up to the sky, find a nice big inhale. On an exhale, twisting to the right. Big round of breath here. As you inhale, come back to center, lift your arms skyward, and exhale, twisting to the left. Full breath here. On your next inhale, lift your arms up to the sky, twist to your right, release your hands down. We'll bring the left hand over the right leg. Keep that there, look forward, and lift your right arm up to the sky. Cross your right arm over you to hold on to your left knee, so your arms are crossed, and then lean back away from your hands and fill up your back body. Breathe into your back body and into the back of your lungs. Release from that and cross your arms and lift your arms up to the sky. Bring your right hand down, let your left fingertips reach up and over to the side, and come back to center, arms up. Send your left hand down, reach your right fingertips up and over to the side. Traveling back through center, arms up, twisting to your left, releasing your hands down. This time the right hand will touch down on the left knee. Find your spiral and then look forward. Let your left arm reach up to the sky, cross over your body to hold on to your right knee, and now lean back away from your hands and again fill up your back body. Breathe into the back of your lungs, and we're in a bit of a bow, so we can feel the bow into our whole life. Bow into your body, coming back through center, lift your arms up to the sky as you uncross your arms, and bring your left hand down, send your right fingertips up and over for a side bend, and coming back through center to find your other side. Right hand down, left fingertips up and over, finding your side bend, and traveling back through center. Make your way towards all fours, bring your hands underneath your shoulders, and bring your knees underneath your hips, and begin to explore some cat-cows, so nice and easy. As you inhale, let your head and tail reach up towards the sky, pressing down through your hands and shins. Exhale, keep breathing down through hands and shins as you round, letting your low, low belly draw back. Inhale, head and tail reach up towards the sky, and exhale, hands and shins rooting to round, low, low belly draws back. A few more times like that, finding your own rhythm, falling into your own rhythm, following the length of your inhale and the length of your exhale, and noticing what is arising. So that's the first step. What is arising in you? Could be sensation as you follow the breath in your cat-cow, extending and flexing your spine. One more time, as you're ready, finding the length of the front of your spine, big inhale, and exhale, rooting down to round, round, round your spine. Find your neutral spine, so all the curves of your spine get to be there. Notice your hands touching and being touched by the ground. Keep your palms down, now lift your thumbs up and find your thumb taps. Tap, tap, tap your thumbs, so thumbs go down and up, down and up, down and up, down and up. You might even make a little drum beat sound on your yoga mat. Up and down, up and down, up and down, and then release your thumbs and then pat your pointer fingers. Pointer fingers, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap your mat, attempting to keep your palm down and your elbows extended. And now lower your pointer finger and tap, tap, tap your middle finger. Up and down, up and down, up and down. And then tapping your ring finger. Waking up your ring finger, keeping your palm down, elbows extended. And then ring finger down, tap, tap, tap your pinkies. Same time, up and down, up and down, up and down. And then release that. Sit on your heels and shake out your hands a bit. And now bring your hands to the floor, feeling your enlivened fingers, root down through your fingers, your hands to press back to a downward-facing dog. So what is arising? Meeting what is arising with your presence? Meeting what is arising with your compassion? Full round of breath here. And make your way towards the front of your mat for a standing forward fold. Release the weight of your head, release your arms, root down into the ground, come all the way up to stand, lift your arms up towards the sky, root down to rise, and release your hands down. Let's find some pats to kind of enliven the skin. So you'll bring your hands to the top of your head and start to pat out the top of your head. And you can decide on the kind of pressure that feels good. You'll bring your hands to your chest. Different parts of your body will want to be patted differently. So some parts of the body will want a little more pressure. You can walk down your arms, pat, pat, pat. Like we did our fingers on the ground and now you're playing the drum of your body. Pat, pat, pat. Again finding a pressure that feels just right for you. Make your way down your body, patting all your skin, waking it up. Pat and looking for a pressure that feels good to you, that feels just right. And then some sweeps. Like love sweeps. Compassionate sweeps. Tender ways of meeting yourself.

Sweeping down your legs. Tender ways of embracing yourself. Coming up to sweep your torso. Ways of accepting yourself. Touching, touching, sweeping. And then lift your arms up to the sky, feeling all of your length. Maybe a little more liveliness in your skin. I can feel a little shimmer. We're going to inhale here. And on an exhale, drop your arms, bend your knees, and find a shake. So arms drop, knees bend, shake. So I found right away that I wanted to widen my feet a little bit to feel a little more ground. So widen your feet as much as you need. And then the shake is really your shake. So what rhythm is just right for you? What size is just right for you? And in a way, when I first start my shake, it can feel like I'm doing the shake. And then the more I relax into it, it feels like my body is shaking me. Experiment with shaking all of your skin. All of your skin, 360 degrees. Shaking your covering. Shake your back body. Shake your inner thighs. Shake all the shadowy parts of yourself under your arms, your side body. Shake the back of your skull. Feel the shake on the bottoms of your feet. Shaking your skin. Keep going. And then shaking your contents. It's like you're holding a glass of water. And shake, shake, shaking the glass of water to shake the contents of you. Shaking all of your fluids. Shaking your soft tissue. And then shaking your bones. Feeling the weight of your bones. Keep falling into your own rhythm here with this shake. So now connect to your breath. And as you inhale, imagine that you're inhaling some light through all of your pores. And when you exhale, drop down to feel your legs connecting to the earth. As you inhale, imagine that you're breathing in sunlight like you're breathing in compassionate energy. Through all of your pores and exhale, find the earth. Finding support from the ground down into your feet. Inhaling sunlight through your skin, through your pores, into the core of your being. And exhale, find your feet rooting into the earth. Inhaling sunlight. And exhale, find the ground. A few more times like this. Your rhythm might be changing. Mine is. It's getting a little bigger. Inhaling, feeling your skin. Inhaling sunlight. Exhale, rooting into the earth.

Feeling the bottoms of your feet. Feeling the ground. Connecting to sunlight. And feeling the earth. One more big breath like this. Then we're going to slow it down. Like you're turning the dial down, the volume down in the radio, until there's a pause. And in the pause, listen for the shimmer. Listen for your permeability. Allow for a little softness in your knees so there's still lots and lots of movement. And sometimes with that, we can get a little softer around the edges after our shake. It's like maybe the tension's released just a little bit. The fist released just a little bit. And now allow your arms to float. Floating out in front of you. I like to keep my knees bent just a little bit. So I'm connecting deeply, deeply into the ground. And now allow your arms to float forward out in front of you. And again, it's like you're not even doing it. They're just floating with the support of the ground and space. Now allow your arms to float out wide to the side and up to the sky. Bend your elbows and let your hands float down in front of you. Connecting once again all the way down into the ground. And again, we'll allow the hands to float up in front of the midline. Arms float wide. Arms opening up wide to the side and up to the sky. And down the midline. One more time like that. So the arms are floating forward out in front. Out wide to the side. And up to the sky. And arms will float down in front. So the arms have been moving in symmetry. So this is a bit more improvisational, but for a moment you'll allow your arms to float in asymmetry. So the arms are floating in space, but now they're doing a bit of their own thing. Still moving in relationship to the ground. So I'm still feeling my feet. It's like my feet get to be so grounded and then my arms are like kites floating in the wind. Allow them to be asymmetrical. And now start to add some spirals. So if you bring your arms out in front of you and you can spiral your arms in and spiral them out. And you might notice that as you do that your spine will start to move. So then again moving your arms in asymmetry, but allowing there to be some spiraling through your arms. And you might find that your spine starts to move in relationship to that. I'm still allowing this creative gesture that's moving through my arms to come from my feet. So it's inspired by the ground. And as I do this free movement I'm experimenting with loosening my preferences, loosening my preoccupations, and meeting what is arising with compassion. Letting the creative gesture be supported by my relationship to the ground. Last couple breaths with this. Arms in asymmetry. Exploring spiral. And then lift your arms up to the sky for Urdhva Hastasana. Palms will face each other. Feel your feet.

And then notice the distance all the way up to your hands. And release your arms down. Bend your knees for just a mini shake. A little loosening. Softening. Bringing everything into movement. Pushing down into the ground. Come back up to stand to pause. Shift your weight a little bit side to side. And we'll bring up weight into the left foot to bring the right knee into the chest. Keep the right knee nice and lifted. And release your arms down to frame your hips. Begin to reach your right leg back behind you. We're traveling towards Crescent Lunge, but we're just going to tap down there. So reaching back through your right foot. Tap your right foot on the floor. Lift your arms up. And then coming back up to where you just were. So right knee into your chest and hands down. And again letting your right leg reach back. Right foot will start to make its way to the floor for a brief visit. Arms up. And then we come back right knee into the chest. Hands down. So brief visits in high Crescent Lunge. Right leg reaches back. Right ball of the foot finds the floor. Arms up. Brief visit. Coming back. Right knee into chest. Hands down. Last time starting to head back. Find your high Crescent Lunge. This time we'll pause here. So finding the ground. Rising up through your arms. And then a check-in. What is arising? What is here for you? How are you meeting yourself? What happens when you meet whatever is arising with compassion? Push through the ball of your back foot. To come back up to your left foot. Bring your right knee into your chest. Hold on to your right shin with your left hand. And begin to reach your right arm back behind you. For your Revolved Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana. You can rotate through your belly, through your heart. Reaching back through your right arm. Travel back through center. And release your right foot down. Lift your arms up to the sky. Fold forward Uttanasana. Lengthen halfway for an Arda Uttanasana. Fold forward Uttanasana. Rise all the way up to stand. Find the ground. Root down. Rise up. Arms skyward. And release your hands down. Shift your weight side to side again.

Until you bring your weight into your right foot. Hug your left knee into your chest. And then keep your knee nice and high like this. But release your hands down to frame your hips. Brief visits in Crescent Lunge. We'll bend the right knee. Reach your left foot back. Reaching back with your left foot. To bring the ball of your foot down. Arms up. Short stay in Crescent Lunge. And then push off the ball of your back foot. Lower your hands. Bring your left knee back into your chest. We'll keep going like that. Reaching your left leg back. Reaching through your left foot. Finding your high Crescent. And then coming right back. Left knee into your chest. Hands lower down to frame your hips. Left leg reaching back. Find the ball of your foot on the ground. Crescent Lunge. Bring your hands down. Left knee into your chest. Reach your left leg back. Finding your Crescent Lunge. This time we'll stay. Exploring a backbend. Up through your thoracic spine. What's here? What's arising? Where is your compassion to meet? What is here? And we're coming back. Left knee into the chest. This time hands can come to your left shin and then we'll hold on to the left shin with the right hand to find the twist. Twisting through your belly. Twisting through your heart. Maybe twisting through your throat. Maybe through your eyes. Come back through center. Release your left foot down. Lift your arms up to the sky. Fold forward.

Lengthening halfway Arda Uttanasana. Step back to your downward facing dog. Come forward to a Plank Pose. Lower all the way down to your belly. Rise up to your Low Cobra. Let your head and chest start to leave the floor. Lower your head and chest and lift your legs up off the floor and we'll keep the knees extended and attempt to lift the lower upper and upper thighs up off the floor. And then lower your legs and lift your head and chest. So it's kind of like you're a teeter-totter. Lower your head and chest. Lift your legs. Lower your legs. Lift your head and chest. Lower your head and chest and lift your legs. Keep going like that. Lowering your legs. Lift your head and chest. Lowering your head and chest. Lift your legs and feel the rocking here. Lower your legs. Lift your head and chest. It's like you're connecting your lower body with your upper body. Lower your head and chest and lift your legs. Lower your legs. Lift your head and chest. And then lowering down and press back to a Child's Pose. Folding into yourself. Bringing presence. Bringing love and compassion to whatever is arising.

Walk yourself back so that you can sit on your heels and reach your arms out wide to the side. Send your arms forward. Bring your right arm on top of your left. Bend your elbows. Hands come around to find a self-hug. And with this self-hug we'll bow in just a little. Offering yourself a hug and receiving this hug. Receiving the hug. It's like the fist is receiving the soft hand. Bring your spine more to neutral. Gaze forward and bring your arms into eagle arms. On an inhale begin to let your fingertips in the crown of your head reach up and back. As you exhale bring your elbows towards your belly and let the spine round. Again like that. Inhaling coming up. Crown of your head and fingertips moving up and back. And exhale elbows coming in to round. Inhale coming up. Fingertips and crown of head moving up and back. And exhale coming in. Let your gaze come forward and unravel your arms. Reach your arms out wide to the side. And then up to the high diagonal. Explore a little back bend here. And release your arms down. And before we find the second side let's come forward and find a downward-facing dog. Travel forward to plank. A moment to hover your right foot up off the floor. And release that. Hover your left foot up off the floor. And release that. Lower your knees down. Find your child's pose. Then roll on up. Have a seat on your heels. Lengthen your arms out wide to the side. And bring your hands forward this time. Left arm on top. Wrapping your arms around. Finding your hug. A little bow in. A moment to connect to the theme of arriving for yourself with compassion. With presence, with love, with care. And then we're going to lift the gaze and bring yourself to eagle arms. Finding some movement here. Fingertips and crown of the head move up and back. Start to round. Bring your elbows towards your navel. Fill up your back body. Coming back up. Fingertips and crown of head up and back. And elbows. Coming in rounding. Rising up. Big inhale to explore this back bend. And we're rounding. Coming back up. This time unravel your arms. Reach your arms out wide to the side. And then up onto the diagonal. Find a little back bend here. Release your hands coming forward to all fours. And press back to your downward facing dog. Some big breaths here. Noticing what is arising. What is here? And how are you meeting what is here? Travel forward to a standing forward fold. Lengthen partway, finding a nice big inhale. And fold forward uttanasana. Come all the way up to stand. Nice strong inhale breath. Rooting down to rise up, up, up, up. Arms skyward. And release your hands down to your heart. Release your hands down and begin to shift your weight side to side. Let's shift weight into the left foot and hug your right knee into your chest. Feeling the weight of your right leg.

Begin to send the weight of your right leg back to come into warrior two. So we're going to bring the back heel down and open the arms up nice and wide. Find your extended side angle. I'm going to bring my left forearm to my left thigh today. Right arm up and over. And then for today let's really make a C curve with the spine. So push down through your left foot and then let the right side waist go up. So what I've also done there is I've increased the length between my right foot and my right hand. I'm getting even longer between those two places. So noticing what's here. Big breaths into what is here. Being really kind to yourself. And then we're going to come back up to warrior two. Heading towards artichandrasana. I'm going to walk my right foot in a little bit so that I can very clearly send my weight into my left leg. So starting to send more and more weight into the left foot to reach the right leg up to the sky. Some folks will want to put their hands on a block here. And then I'm rooting down. Rooting down to rise. Rooting down to expand from my belly to my legs. From my belly out through my arms. From my belly through my head and tail. And then releasing back down into a standing forward fold. So right hand comes down. Right foot comes down. Uttanasana. Release the weight of your head. Release your spine. Lengthen halfway. Artichandrasana. Folding in. Bend your knees. Drop your tail a bit and roll up your spine. Lift your arms up to the sky. Urvahastasana. And bring your hands together in front of your heart. Release your hands down. And again we're shifting weight. Shifting weight to the right foot. Shifting weight to the left foot. Shifting weight to your right foot and keep pouring your weight into your right leg and foot till your left foot is light. And then bring your left knee into your chest. Feel the weight of your left leg and begin to send your left leg back to your warrior too. Feeling your full size. Your full size to meet what is here. And coming into extended side angle. I mean it's kind of silly but sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm an adult. I can actually meet what is here. And from my adult body. Pushing down into the ground to feel the lengthening from left foot to left hand. And then again for this practice today we're finding a C-curve. So letting the left side waist go up as the right foot goes down. Finding a full round of breath here. And coming back to your warrior too. Start to walk your back foot in a bit. Preparing here for artichandrasana. So I'm stepping my foot in so I can more clearly pour weight into the right foot. Pouring weight. Pouring weight until the left foot becomes light. And then there I am in my artichandrasana. Rooting down through the right foot to start to expand. So I'm finding the ground to expand. Being kind and gentle with myself. Even as I'm balancing. And we'll start to release. So left hand coming down. Left foot coming down. Find your standing forward fold. Lengthen halfway artichandrasana. Fold forward.

And then again we'll roll up. So bend your knees. Drop your tail. And slowly start to roll up. Lift your arms up to the sky. Finding all your length from feet to hands. And drop your arms. Bend your knees. One more little shake. Just a brief one this time. Again listening any of the knots. Through a shake. Through your compassion. Through your breath. Nice big inhale. Exhale finding the ground. And then starting to turn the volume down on this shake. Until again there's a pause but the pause still has a lot of movement. So for me I have to check in right away with my ankles. Did I lock my ankles? Am I tensing my knees? Can there still be some movement there? Bring your hands to your heart. You can bring them together. And then turn your palms towards your heart. As though there were a little gentle offering here. Compassionate offering. As though your hands were carrying sweet medicine. And then they're just going to shine that medicine to the heart. Letting your heart receive that. And then bringing your hands all the way to your heart. Making contact. Pausing. Listening. Big breath. Release your hands down and reach your arms up to the sky. Fold forward. Uttanasana. Lengthening halfway. Arda Uttanasana. Step back to your downward facing dog. So from here if you would like to find a low cobra go for it. If you would like to find an upward facing dog go for it. If you'd like to stay steady here or find child's pose go for it. A few breaths here. I'm going to come into an upward facing dog. Letting the back bend come through my thoracic spine behind my heart. And then let's meet up in a child's pose. Start to come up and make your way to your seat. Extend your legs forward out in front of you and then open your legs up wide. Upavista Konasana. So most people will appreciate sitting up on a blanket or a block so that your pelvis can still move and so that your spine can be upright. So find any supports that you might need to be here. And then bring your fingertips back behind you. Press down through your finger pads. Let your pubic bones travel to the earth so that your sternum can widen so that the front of your heart can expand. You are welcome to stay here. If your hamstrings will allow it you're welcome to walk your hands forward. And you might start to tip your hips forward a bit maybe coming down. Legs can stay nice and active here. Ankles and feet extending or flexing and the heels will start to press down into the earth. Notice what's arising. Meeting what is arising with your presence, with compassion, with love. Slowly starting to come up. We'll keep the left leg extended and then bend your right knee so your right foot is on the floor. Take your left hand and hold on to your right ankle and reach your right arm up to the sky and we'll find a side bend. So tipping over to the left. I like to wiggle my right foot just a little bit on the diagonal so that my left arm is extended.

And then from there allowing for the twist to happen or the side bend to happen. Coming all the way back up right into the second side so the right leg will extend. The left knee will bend. Right hand to left ankle. Left arm up to the sky and starting to tip over to the right. Maybe adjusting your left foot so that your right arm can extend. Nice big breaths here. As you're ready coming back up and extend your left leg. Bring your hands underneath your knees to help bend your knees. Bring your feet to the floor and then externally rotate your legs and bring the soles of your feet together. Bring your hands back behind you. Finding Baddha Konasana and then again we'll root down through the finger pads to allow the pubic bones, the front of the pelvis to head down. Allowing for a little more expanse through your chest. Big breaths into your heart space. Full expansion and relax. Bring your knees together and then we're going to transition onto the back body. So let's have a seat knees bent feet on the floor. Let your hands come forward out in front of you and slowly begin to roll down onto your back. Once you're down begin to organize your legs to come into your bridge. So bending your knees a little bit more. Having the soles of your feet on the floor. Begin to push down into the ground to inspire a lift of your hips. Let's roll the shoulders underneath the back to interlace your hands and then begin to root down through the upper arms, root down through the inner feet. Allowing the hips to lift and then again feeling your heart space. Allowing some nice big breaths to come into your ribs, lungs, heart and gently releasing your arms to release your hips all the way down. Hug your knees into your chest. Send your legs over to the right for a supine twist. So legs to the right, left arm over to the side. Some breaths to notice how your spine is moving with your breath. And then again following this little map of what is arising. Noticing what is arising. Feeling that place where you are meeting your experience and meeting your experience with compassion. Coming back through center and finding the other side. So legs to your left, right arm opening up to the side. And of course we're in an ongoing inquiry into what compassion is. Ongoing inquiry into what love is. We could be asking again and again what is the feeling of compassion and how can I meet whatever is arising with that compassion. One more full breath here. Come back to center, hug your knees into your chest and release your legs down and begin to prepare your body for shavasana. Notice the ground beneath you. Coming into fresh contact with the ground. So we say grounded all the time but of course the feeling of that is always different. What is it like right now to offer yourself to the ground and to receive the ground support? In a way it could be like the ground is the soft hand holding you. Holding you with compassion. A sweet reminder that you don't have to do it alone. Receiving the ground. As though the ground or the soft hand receiving that touch. Letting the ground be a loving embrace, a compassionate embrace.

Be with your breath and allow for a little movement to start to come in, a little more movement inspired by your breath. Allow this movement to grow until you begin to transition to your side body. Rise all the way up to your seat and on a nice big inhale open your arms wide feeling your full size. As you exhale let's seal our practice in with a bow bringing your hands together bowing in bowing into whatever you are devoted to bowing into what you value. And then coming back up release your hands. Thank you so much for your practice. Thank you.