Pleasure

Welcome. One of the themes we're working with here is cultivating self-love. And when we come into a relationship with anyone, we want it to feel good. We want there to be pleasure, we want there to be joy, we want there to be little comforts. So I want to explore that with you today. Let's start seated and if you would please bring your hands together and rub them together. Feeling your two hands meet. Pleasure is just one of the many things that are available to us right now. So your hands, they are touching, they are being touched and what is that like? What kind of pressure would feel just right for you? And let's pause that and allow your hands to move just slightly apart. Notice any tingling, any movement, any sensation on your skin. Maybe you're feeling your hands between the space. How do your hands know each other through the space? And now feel into one area of your body that could use a little touch or use a little care and then place your hands on that area of the body.

So we are offering touch and we are receiving touch and this is intimacy. To offer and to receive. To know and to be known. To see and to be seen. To hear and to be heard. Cultivating intimacy here in this touch with yourself. Releasing your hands down and begin a little sway. And in this sway you can feel into leading from the middle of your spine. Like maybe you're leading from your lower ribs swaying side to side. And it's a sequential movement in that your head and your pelvis are at least like they're going for the ride. There's some movement there but it's coming from the middle spine. Swaying, swaying, side to side. And then again looking for a little comfort or a little sweetness. Like it's like putting something in your mouth and letting it taste good.

Or feeling that it does taste good. It's a little sway. Letting there be some pleasure here. And finding your way to center and lift your arms skyward. Feel your full reach. Twist to your left and release your hands down. Coming back through center and lift your arms skyward. And twisting to the other side. Releasing your arms down. Traveling back through center. Inhale, breath, arms up and exhale. Bring your left hand down and reach your right fingertips up and over to the side. Inhale, come back through center. Reach your arms skyward. Exhale, right hand down, left fingertips up and over to the side. Coming back through center, arms up. One more time each side. Left hand down, right fingertips to the side. Again, can it feel good? Inhale, rising up. Right hand down, left fingertips to the side. Receiving a little pleasure. And rising up, arms skyward.

Release your arms down. Make your way to all fours. Find a couple cat cows. Lengthening the front of your spine. Pushing through hands and shins and lengthening the back of your spine. Again, lengthening the front of your spine. Inhale, pushing through your hands and shins to lengthen the back of your spine. We'll find a neutral spine. Extend your right leg back. Find a nice big inhale here. On an exhale, bring your knee to your nose as you round. Inhaling, starting to reach your right leg back behind you. And exhale, knee to nose. Pushing through your hands and shins, let the low belly draw back. And again like that. Lengthening the front body. Knee to nose. Lengthen the back body.

And coming back to all fours. Have a seat on your heels. Interlace your hands. Reach your palms up to the sky for parvatosana arms. Lengthen your arms from your back body. And gently release your arms. Coming back to all fours. And once again, we'll reach the left leg back behind. Find a nice big inhale. On an exhale, bring your knee to your nose and round your spine. Inhale, extend your left leg back. Reach the crown of your head forward. Get nice and long. And exhale, start to round. Knee to nose. Let the belly come back. And again, inhale, breath. Lengthening back. Exhale, knee to nose. One more time with that. Inhale, reach the crown of your head forward. Left leg reaches back. Exhale, knee to nose. And release your left knee down. Have a seat back on your heels. Once again, interlacing your hands. Reach your palms up. Parvatosana arms. And releasing your hands down. Come forward to all fours and transition all the way down to your belly. Rise up for your low cobra. Lower your head and chest and lift your legs. And we'll kind of get into the flow with that. So your legs will lower and your head and chest will lift. And your head and chest can lower as your legs lift. Legs will lift, head and chest will lift. Head and chest, lower, legs lift. And as you do this, keep going. Feel the rocking. Rocking yourself into cobra, connecting to your legs. Lowering down and rocking your legs up. Lowering your legs, lifting your head and chest. And again, connecting to a little pleasure here. Pleasure here. Lowering your legs, finding your low cobra. And pressing back to a child's pose.

Let your hips be nice and heavy. Start to lift your head and walk your hands over to the right. Releasing the pelvis back down, finding a side bend. And again, there's a possibility here that this could feel really sweet. Coming back through center and walking your hands over to the other side. Couple big breaths into your side body. Travel back through center. Come forward to all fours and head back to your downward facing dog. You just found some nice side body length. Seeing if you can find some of that here. Now here in your downward facing dog, feel into where your tailbone is. And your tailbone is going to roll you forward to a plank. So let your tailbone come forward so that it starts to round your low back. And then round your middle back. And we're traveling forward to plank, but rounding, rounding, rounding on the way. Round your upper back. And then find the length of your plank. Reach the crown of your head forward. We're going to come back leading from the top. Push into your hands to round your upper back. Round your middle back. Keep pushing through your hands. Round your lower back. And then find the length of your downward facing dog. Doing that once again. So rounding your lower back. Letting your tailbone come forward, rounding your middle back. Slowly traveling to plank, rounding up your upper back. And then finding the length of your plank. Reach the crown of your head forward. Push through your hands. Round your upper back. Round your middle back. Round your lower back. And then find the length of your downward dog. We're going to take our downward dog for a little walk. Just a couple, it's almost like you're a four-legged animal. So as a four-legged animal, you'll take a couple steps forward and a couple steps back. And do that forward and back on your own. And let your spine move a little bit like you're a bear or a tiger, a cat. Letting your spine move as you push into the ground, walking a little forward and a little back. And then finding the steadiness of your downward facing dog. Step forward for Uttanasana, standing forward fold.

Lengthen halfway and fold forward again. Let's do that a couple of times and let your breath carry you. Look for the sweetness here. Lengthening halfway and folding in. Again, looking for the sweetness, looking for the pleasure, lengthening halfway. And folding. Rise all the way up to stand this time. Push down into the ground. Reach your arms up, up, up. And release your arms down. Swaying a little side to side. And just like we did when we were seated, let's let this sway come from the middle spine. Like you're swaying from the lower ribs. Letting your head and your tail kind of go for the ride. And then again, we're just letting it have some sweetness. And it's just one of the many things that could be available for us right now. It's like when you're eating food and then there's just a moment of pausing to be like, ah, this is delicious. This could be delicious. Ah. And then we're going to start to bring it a little bit closer in until we're standing. Allow your knees to bend. The shoulders will come forward and you can round your spine a little bit. Then the shoulders will come up as we extend the legs and then back, little backbend and down again. And a few times like that. So shoulders forward and up as the legs extend. Shoulders back and down as the knees bend. Shoulder rolls. And it can feel pretty organic. So the knees bending and extending. And it's like the shoulder rolls are coming from the push down into the ground. Shoulder rolls. And now whole arm circles. So fingertips go forward in space and up to the sky and back and down. And a few times like that, rooting into the earth to come up. Big circle.

And down. And again. Going forward and up and back and down. Great. And then bring your hands together in front of your heart. Reach your arms up to the sky. Fold forward over your legs. Lengthen halfway. And then step your right foot back to a lunge and lower your right knee down. And with an interest in feeling supported and feeling good, I'm going to pad my back knee with a blanket. As you're ready, coming up for a low lunge. Exploring a back bend here through your whole spine. Let's bring our hands to support the back of the head. Let the back of your head come into your hands. A little added support for your neck. And gently release both hands down. Tuck your back toes. Lift your back knee. Take a quarter turn. Head to your right. Find a little sway through center. And then right on over to the second side. So taking a quarter turn to your right. Lowering your back knee down. Rising up for your low lunge. Again, letting your whole spine participate here in this back bend.

Interlace your hands. Bring your hands behind your head. And let the weight of your head move into your hands. Adding a little added support for your neck. And releasing both hands down. Tuck your back toes. Lift your back knee up. And take a quarter turn. Back to wide-legged forward fold. So let's lengthen up part way. And turn your heels in, your toes out. We're preparing here for goddess. So we're going to bend both knees. And walk your hands up to your thighs. Let's take a moment here to sway out a little side to side. So sending a little more weight into my left foot. And a little bit more weight into my right foot. A little bit more weight into my left foot. A little bit more weight into my right foot. And starting to come through center. Until I feel my weight traveling down through both feet. Send your arms out wide to the side. Push down into both feet to extend your legs. Reaching your arms on the high diagonal.

Root down. Lift up. And bend both knees again. Coming into your goddess. Push down into your right foot to let your right arm go up and over. And your right leg can start to extend there. And then from here, we're going to bend both knees and round the spine through center. And now push into your left foot to find this version of extended side angle. Second side. So left arm travels up. And now push through your right foot to extend arms on the diagonal. Take up space. Bend your right knee. Left arm up and over. Round through center.

Push through your right foot. Left arm up and over. Push through your left foot. Coming up. Arms on the diagonal. Getting nice and long. And finding your circle. Left knee bends. Left knee bends. Right arm up and over. Both knees bend. Travel through center. Shifting weight to the right foot. Right knee bends. Left leg extends. Left arm up. Push through the right foot to come up. Nice and big. So much length here. And then one more time.

Right knee bends. Left arm up and over. Both knees bending. Travel through center. Left knee bending. Right leg extending. And then pushing through both feet. Coming up. Bend both knees. Bring your hands to your legs again. And then again a little shifting side to side. Letting the spine have some sweet sway. Moving side to side from your feet. Pushing. And then finding center a little up and down.

And folding down. Bring your hands to the floor. Lengthen your legs. Bring your legs to parallel. Prasarita Padottanasana. Wide legged forward fold. We'll lengthen the spine. And fold forward. If it's comfortable for you, release the weight of your head. Release the back of your skull to the ground. Inhale, breath, lengthen your spine. Exhale, bring your hands to your hips.

Shift your weight back onto your heels. And with a strong inhale, breath, come all the way up to stand. And step your feet together. Wideen your feet just a little bit so that you can return to this sway. This way that's being moved from the middle of your spine again. So this could be very, very intimate. Like close to your center. Very dear. And you could also play with finding a little bit more range of motion.

Like if I went any farther, I would have to take a step. So you could also explore that or anywhere in between. So we're going to look at a similar thing, but now going forward and up. And I'm just going to turn to the side in case you need to see that initiation. So the middle of my back is bringing me forward. And you're just finding whatever your down is.

And the middle of my back is going to bring me up, up, up, up, until it transitions back to the front. So there's a rolling movement. Forward and up. And we'll keep going like that a few more times. So letting the spine come forward. And you're finding the range of motion that is just right for you today. And that feels supportive for you and your back today.

And we're going to come all the way back up and feel the top of your head. And let the top of your head do a little movement side to side. A little bit to the right, a little bit to the left. And as you can see, I'm letting my weight shift on my feet. But again, this can be very dear, very close, very intimate.

You can also explore your range of motion. And then we're coming through center. And we'll let the top of the head lead us down. And you'll reach forward with the top of your head to lead you up. So top of the head goes forward and up and up and back until you're in a little back bend.

And then it reverses. Top of your head leads you down. Top of your head leads you up. Keep going like this. And as you're moving your spine, rolling down, listening for any sweetness.

Or what would feel just right for you? As you move your spine in space, rolling down and rolling up, leading from the top of your head and then coming to neutral. And again, widening your feet. And we'll just do a little sway from the tail. So your tailbone leads you to the side.

And again, we're experimenting. Can this also be sequential where I'm letting my whole spine be initiated by this little movement in the tail? It's like if I had a string of beads and I had one end of it. And then I was moving it and letting the whole string of beads respond to that one initiation point. So moving from tail.

Oh, finding little spots that maybe don't want to move so much. And then traveling through center. And we'll let the tailbone lead us forward and back. So the tailbone travels back to bring you forward. The tailbone will scoop under to roll you up to then transition to reaching back again.

Coming forward, tailbone comes under to roll you up. And a few more times like that. Again, exploring the range of motion that is just right for you today. The range of motion that's just right. Keeping it close and intimate.

Or letting it be really full, expansive, what is just right for you. And when you're ready, letting your tail come back, folding forward. One more time, bending your knees, letting your tail come forward. Rolling up this time, lift your arms up to the sky. And bring your hands together in front of your heart.

Bend your knees, lower your arms, inhale, arms up. And exhale, hands to your heart. Bend your knees a little bit, connecting to the ground. And then release your arms, reach them up to the sky. And this time, fold forward into Uttanasana.

We're going to step the right foot back to find a lunge. Your right hand can be on the ground or on the floor. And then we'll reach the left arm up to the sky. Now we just did all of that sweet spinal movement. So let's feel it here.

Notice how your spine can twist, twisting your whole spine, including your whole spine in the spiral. And releasing your arm down. Take a quarter turn. So you're in a wide legged forward fold, but then find your sway. So you're going to shift a little weight to your left, and then a little weight to your right foot.

You can bend your knees. And as you do, let your spine be swaying again, allowing for that sequential movement. Maybe some sweetness, listening for what would feel good to you right now. Take a quarter turn to your right. Plant your left hand inside of your right foot and find your twisted lunge.

Second side, right arm reaches up to the sky. So again, with the echo of the spinal movement, letting your whole spine be included in the spiral, opening up to the possibility of this feeling sweet, this feeling good, this feeling pleasurable. And releasing your right hand down. Taking a quarter turn back to wide legged forward fold, let's lengthen up halfway and fold forward, just for a few breaths here. Rooting down through your feet, releasing the weight of your head, noticing how your spine is moving here with each breath.

What happens when you inhale? What happens when you exhale? Let's lengthen up, bringing your hands underneath your shoulders and shift your weight back onto your heels. Bring your hands to your hips and come all the way up to stand. Bring your feet a little closer together.

Release your hands down along your sides. And you can widen your feet as much as you need to to find a little spiral here. And so I'm feeling this in my feet. It's pretty casual, shifting weight to one side. And then arms can kind of go for the ride.

And first, keeping it pretty close, close to center. And then we're going to let it get a little bit longer. A little bit larger. So the next time you twist over to your right, slow it down and reach your left fingertips to the high diagonal and reach your left foot to the low diagonal. And then letting your left foot come down again, we're going to head to the other side.

So right hand reaches to the high diagonal, right foot to the low diagonal, and traveling through center. Maybe a little faster this time, so left arm reaches, traveling through center, right arm reaches, and then through center, left arm reaches and through center. Right arm reaches through the center, left arm reaches, traveling through center, right arm reaches coming through center and I'll make it a little smaller again. again. Just a gentle twist coming from your feet letting your arms go for the ride. Slowing that down. Slowing it down until there's a pause. Lift your arms up to the sky and bring your hands to the top of your head and sweep down your body all the way down and we'll just do that a couple of times.

So inhaling arms up bring your hands to the top of your head and sweeping down your body. Again rising up you may have remember this from the first class in this show. Notice if it's changed at all hands to head and sweeping down your body and then inhale rising up lift your arms up to the sky and bring your hands to your heart. Bring your palms to face your heart. Bring your hands to touch your heart. A moment to pause and a moment to listen offering yourself great care. Release your arms. Reach your arms up to the sky. Exhale fold forward. Lengthen halfway and step back to a downward facing dog. If you would like to explore another cobra here feel free or an upward facing dog feel free. Eventually we're gonna meet up in Child's Pose. So a few breaths for yourself to find anything that would feel sweet, good, pleasurable. Find a yes. Yes, yes, yes. And then again we're gonna meet up in Child's Pose. Walk your hands in come all the way up to have a seat on your heels and then make a little transition over to your right hip and plant your right hand on the ground and it's like your right hand is going to be your anchor so that you can push into your right hand to move your spine freely. So one way I like to think of this is like my spine is like a kite in the wind and my right hand is the support anchoring me like the end of the string. Someone's holding it. So I have the support, the ground and then my spine can move. Another way that you could think of this is that your spine is is moving like a like a water snake swimming in the water. Your spine is moving in the fluids of you and you can get creative here. Whatever would feel sweet for you, whatever would feel good. And again just like listening for the possibility of pleasure to be here right now. And now bring your left hand to the floor as well and this changes the the movement in the spine quite a bit but just kind of feel it's like a twisted cat cow. You're just seeing what kind of spinal movement is available to me here. And then we're gonna release that. Travel through center so you can have a seat on your heels again and then shifting to the other side. So shifting to your outer left hip. Left hand on the floor. This always reminds me of like a mermaid position. Left hand is the anchor and then we start to move through the spine. And my spine is really being inspired by this anchor pushing. Sometimes I even like to let my elbow bend a little bit so I have a little more playfulness, a little more play in my spine. And that's actually an aspect of pleasure that I sometimes lean into is that there's play. I get to play here and that can release me into some spaciousness to find more sweetness. And let's bring the right hand down. I'm just noticing that changes things a little bit but still allowing there to be some creative movements in your spine. Now you have these two anchors. And then let's release that. Have a seat and bring your legs out in front of you. So one possibility here is to be in cross-legged position with your right chin in front of your left. I'm gonna have a seat on my blanket again. Another possibility would be to stack your shin. So your right shin could be on top of your left shin. This might be, you know, you might need some more supports here. So you could put something underneath your knee, come up on a little bit more height. So we'll pause here for a moment to feel the weight of your pelvis. Release the front of your pelvis down. Connect to breath. And as you start to feel a little more subtle then you can ask yourself, do I want to fold forward or do I want to stay up? And just in that moment of like, what is your preference right now? Listen for your yes. Where is your yes? I want to fold forward. So I'm gonna let myself do that. That's just a small little moment to connect to a yes. Slowly come back up and switch what leg is on top or in front. And then again a moment to settle in. I hear taking an exhale in a process of arriving. Feeling the weight of your pelvis. And then again it's just like you have a choice. And listen for what you would like. Would you like to fold forward or would you like to stay upright? Listening and then feeling the yes and honoring that. Ah you know we don't always get to do that so it's sweet to find the places that we can. Ah there's some sweetness there. A couple more breaths. And gently press into your hands to come up. Shift slightly back to release your legs forward and you can shake them out a little bit. And let's find a blanket. Take your blanket and you're gonna want to make a little roll of it or a fold of it so that the blanket can line your spine. You'll sit in front of your blanket and lie down so that your blanket is lining your spine and that your head can be supported as well by your blanket. So we have some options here with your legs so you can listen for your yeses. So one possibility would be to have your knees bent and your feet on the floor. Another possibility would be to extend your legs forward out in front of you. Another possibility would be to have the soles of your feet together and your knees open up wide. For some of us that would require a little more support like knees, blocks rather underneath your knees. It's just kind of feeling what would be the best option for you today. And we're gonna settle in here for a couple of minutes. Bring some attention to this contact with the ground. Where are you touching the ground?

Where is the ground touching you? And allow all of those areas to, it's like you're letting them get a little wider. And this again is like a place of intimacy to touch and to be touched. And now be with your breath. And when we breathe we are being touched on the inside. That is so intimate. To bring a breath all the way in. To be touched by it. To feel an entire body moving in relationship to each breath. Notice what happens to the movement of your ribs when you inhale. And feel that movement when you exhale. And away with this movement we're letting the breath have its way with us. It's just like I'm getting out of the way just a bit so I can feel the way I am moved by breath. Feel the movement of your ribs. And diving in a little bit deeper here to feel the movement of your spine. Your spine moves when you breathe. Maybe touching the intimacy of that or the sweetness of that, the pleasure of that. We're going to slowly start to transition. So if they're not already bend your knees and place your feet on the floor. And slowly begin to transition onto your side body. So taking a little roll over and then take your blanket, move it to the side, roll onto your back. So we're going to take this blanket roll and place it underneath the sacrum. So push into your feet, lift your hips, and slide your blanket underneath your sacrum. And begin to lift your feet up towards the sky. And if your hamstrings don't allow extended legs, it's okay to bend your knees so that your sacrum and pelvis can release onto the support of the blanket. Now a few breaths here. Again notice the movement of your ribs. And you might want to even put just a little like floating quality in your heart. A little expansion through your chest. It's as though there were like raindrops or like I think of a rainbow coming down through my feet, traveling through my legs, filling up my pelvis, and filling up my heart, or like stardust. Go ahead and bend your knees and place your feet on the ground. Push down into your feet to lift your hips, take your blanket and slide it off to the side, and release your hips back down. Hug your knees into your chest and send your legs over to the right, extend your left arm off to the side for a supine twist. Again a really great place to feel how your spine moves in relationship to your breath. Opening to the possibility of this feeling good.

Bring your legs back to center and send your legs to the other side. Legs to the left, arm to the right, and then again just settling to the movements of your spine. Letting yourself taste what is here. Feel what is here. And opening to the possibility that there could be pleasure here. Gently traveling back through center, bring the soles of your feet together, but your feet will be up off the floor so that your hands can come to the inside of the legs to hold on to your ankles or your feet, and then extend the legs. So it's a bada konasana, supta bada konasana, but your hands are to your ankles. You might have a little stretch sensation up by your neck and upper shoulders. We'll find a couple big breaths here. Maybe even a sigh with the exhales and bring your knees together. Let's prepare for shavasana. You have a blanket here if you want to put a blanket under your knees or on top of your body, taking the time to get cozy, be comfortable, find a little comfort, and then settling and resting. Again, connecting to this quality of intimacy where we touch and we are touched. Be with your breath. Again, noticing the movement in your body because you're breathing. Start to find some movement in your hands and feet, letting that movement be inspired by your breath. And then reach your arms back behind you and get nice and long.

Like a wake-up stretch. Gently transition to your side body and come all the way up to your seats. Big inhale and exhale out your mouth. Maybe even a sigh. Inhale, opening your arms up, expanding out through your fingertips. As you exhale, let's close with a bow. And coming back up to center. Thank you so much for practicing with me today. Thank you.