Gratitude

Welcome. In today's practice, I'd like to focus on gratitude. Gratitude allows us to hold more. As I've been moving through this content, I have been contacting a tender heart. And I am reminded that as I cultivate more love, I'm also contacting grief.

And gratitude allows me to hold both the love and the grief. Because regardless of what is happening in my life, there's always something that I can be grateful for. Gratitude also allows us to connect to others. So let's do a little short meditation to explore some of that together. Find your way to a comfortable seat.

And feel the ground beneath you. Standing and being touched by this ground. Reflect for a moment on all of the humans and non-humans that have offered you kindness. Really start to feel into it. Even the seat here can be offering you kindness by supporting you.

The people and animals in your life offering you kindness. I like to reflect on lineage and the way that wisdom has moved through humans to come to me, the way I have received wisdom. And as I connect to this feeling of gratitude for my teachers, it opens me. I almost could feel my heart like bursting. And sometimes the gratitude brings tears to my eyes.

A moment to steep in your own embodied experience of gratitude. Bring your attention to your breath. Say thank you to this breath. So much more than we could ever know than to be living, to be breathing. Keeping your hands together in front of your heart and rub your hands together.

Feeling your two hands touch. And reflect for a moment all that your hands do for you in this world, in your life. Exercise and allow your hands to move just slightly apart and then placing your hands anywhere on your body, any place that could use a little attention or any place that you'd like to dive into a little bit more. And feel into this contact and say thank you, thank you, thank you. And sometimes we just start saying it and then eventually we get beneath the words into the feeling of gratitude.

Thank you heart for doing all you do to refresh my blood. Thank you heart for all that you hold. And feel into the warmth of gratitude. It can be like a flame, an inner flame, an inner warmth, an inner light. And begin to open your arms.

Open your arms wide as though that light were starting to shine, shine, shine out into your edges, out into your fingertips. Bring your hands together in front of your heart to find your bow and sometimes gratitude naturally brings us into a bow. Coming back up and bring the backs of your hands onto your legs. As you inhale, open your hands nice and wide and stretch through your fingers. As you exhale, bring your fingers in, close your hands, make a fist, do that a couple of times.

So inhaling, open your hands and exhale, allow your hands to draw in, make a fist. And again, let breath move you. It can be an amazing experience to let breath move your body. It's like you're becoming breath, being moved, opening your hands and closing them as you exhale. And let's get the spine involved.

So the next time your hands open, rock your pelvis forward and lengthen the front of your spine and let your hands come to a fist, round your body, lengthen the back of your spine as you exhale. We'll do that a couple of times. So inhaling, lengthening the front of your spine as your hands open and exhale, closing your hands, make a fist as you round. Again, dropping into the experience of breath and let breath move you. It's like you've just put your raft in a river and you're letting the river take you.

Don't have any paddles, just let it move you. Open your palms, lengthen the front of your spine and rounding, rounding, rounding. And traveling back through center, allow your arms to open up again, again feeling this expanse, like the inner warmth of gratitude is spreading out into your fingers through your crown and release your arms down. Let's travel towards in all fours. Wiggle out your hips a little bit.

Now tuck your toes and if your joints are up for it, you're just going to press yourself back into a squat and bring your hands together in front of your heart. Bring your hands down to the floor and lift your hips up high, release your head and let's come back down. So we'll just do that a couple of times. So bend your knees, bring your hands to your heart and release your hands to lift your hips. Bend your knees, lower your hips, hands to heart.

Release your hands and lift your hips, bring your feet a little bit closer to parallel to pause in your Uttanasana. Bend your knees as much as you need to so that you can bring your hands to your feet and in this moment of contact, say a thank you. And then walking your hands up your legs a little bit, feeling your shins and tracing them down or giving yourself a little sweep, a little pat, a little rub, whatever would feel good and say thank you. And now rolling up your spine, bringing your hands to your thighs and again saying thank you and rolling up a little bit more to bring your hands onto your belly and say thank you. And then walking your hands up a little bit higher to your heart and saying thank you.

Bringing your hands towards your arms and just brushing them down saying thank you. Lift your arms up to the sky, bring your hands to your head, brushing down your body saying thank you. And if you've ever had an injury, you know how that wakes up the gratitude. So we'll lift the arms up and then again saying thank you all the way down. And then lifting your arms up to the sky and bring your hands together in front of your heart and make your way towards the front of your mat.

So we're going to sway a little bit side to side as we've been doing in this series. The next time you sway over to your left side, allow your right foot to get lighter and lighter and lighter and begin to reach your right foot back. It's like you're coming to crescent lunge except you're just going to tap the floor and then come right back to stand. And then again, shifting weight to the left, reach your right foot back and we're going to tap the floor and then come right back to stand. One more time like that.

So shifting your weight into the left foot, reach your right foot back to tap and coming right back to stand. So you could stay with that variation or starting to come towards crescent lunge. So you'll reach your right foot back, find your crescent lunge, reach your arms up and then right knee into chest as the arms come down to frame the hips. And again like that. So reaching back to high crescent lunge and bring your right knee into your chest as the hands come down to frame hips.

One more time like that. So reaching it back, find your high crescent lunge and right knee into your chest. This time we'll find warrior one. So start to bring your right leg back and find your warrior one by bringing your back heel down and reach your arms up to the sky. Feel your feet really contacting the ground here.

Push down into your left foot to start to extend your leg and let your arms go back, little back bend here, crown of the head up and back. And now circle your arms back and down and forward as your front knee bends and you'll make your way towards a diagonal and repeat. So front leg pushes down or front foot to extend, let your arms go up and back, circle your arms down and forward, find the diagonal. Then push down through your front foot, find the back bend here and releasing your arms back, down and forward. And now coming up for your warrior one, keeping your front knee bent.

Maybe starting to let your eyes travel out on the horizon or maybe even up on the diagonal and releasing your arms down to the ground. Step back to a downward facing dog. Find a little sway here, so shifting your weight a little bit to your left hand, a little bit to your right hand, maybe a little bending of your knees and connect to your breath. Moving back again and again to little bits of gratitude. It truly is a miracle to be here like this at this time in your body.

Settle forward to plank and lower all the way down to your belly. Rise up to a low cobra, gently lower down, rise back up to plank and make your way back to downward facing dog. Let's find a nice big breath here and make your way forward towards a standing forward fold. You can step your feet forward and then again bend your knees as much as you need to so that your hands can touch your feet. Thank you.

And then starting to roll up, hands to shins, thank you. Rolling up, hands to thighs, thank you. Rolling up, hands to belly, thank you. Embodying gratitude, hands to heart, thank you. Hands to head, thank you.

And then lift your arms up to the sky and bring your hands to your heart. And begin to shift your weight side to side, embodying gratitude. And this of course is how we offer it to others, by feeling it in our own bodies. The next time you've shifted weight to your right side, let your left foot get light and then we'll start to hover the left foot up off the floor, bend your right knee, reach your left foot back to tap the floor and then right back to stand. And again shifting weight, left foot reaches back to tap the floor, like you're coming to crescent lunge but you come right back to stand.

One more time like that, so shifting weight, left foot reaching back and tap the floor to stand and now heading towards crescent lunge. So shift your weight, hover the left foot, reach your left foot back, start to reach back, back, back through your foot to reach your arms up, high crescent lunge and pushing through the ball of your back foot to bring your back knee into your chest, hands lower down to frame your hips and again coming to high crescent lunge. Reaching the left leg back, arms rise up skyward and coming back, left knee into the chest, hands come down to frame your hips. And again reach your left leg back. Last time bring your knee into your chest and then this time we'll start to reach the left leg back to come into your warrior one.

So you'll bring your back heel down, sometimes I have to wiggle my feet apart to lengthen my stance and now begin to root down through your feet, particularly through your front foot to extend your front leg and then explore a back bend, reach your arms back and release your arms back, down and forward, bring your spine forward so there's a diagonal. And again push through your feet, lengthen your front leg, find your back bend and release your arms down and forward, find your diagonal. And again push through your front foot, find your back bend, arms opening up and back and release in your arms, find your diagonal and then keep your front knee bent and come into your warrior one, a couple of breaths here, rooting down, lifting your gaze including your eyes and release your hands down. Push down into your hands to find your downward facing dog, find a couple of breaths here, letting your weight shift and then finding some steadiness, reading through both hands to lift your hips, travel forward to plank, lower all the way down to your belly, feel free to lower your knees down for that transition and rise up to a low cobra, root back through the tops, or root back and down through the tops of your feet to lift your sternum forward and up and gently lower down, rising up to plank again and head back to a downward facing dog. Find a nice big round of breath here and make your way forward to a standing forward fold and bring your hands again to your feet, thank you.

Hands to shins, thank you, hands to thighs, thank you, rolling up to bring your hands to your belly, thank you, rolling up to bring your hands to your heart, thank you, hands to your head, thank you and then rising all the way up, Urdhva Hastasana, lift your arms up to the sky and release your arms down, start to find your sway again. So one of the sweet things about love is that it brings us into movement, it brings us into more fluidity, it releases our sense of opposites. And then when you're ready, so finding your sway, we're going to shift the weight into the left foot and hug your right knee into your chest. Send your right leg back behind you and find your warrior two. So back heel down, arms opening up wide to the side.

Explore movement here, so feel your feet talking to the floor, little shifts of weight here and be with your breath, breath letting your arms float, so a little bit of movement there. So to say it again and you know maybe something to contemplate, but love releases us or frees us from the binary, it opens us up to possibility, to loving things and people we never thought possible, to love things that are different than us, so feeling your arms and feeling that there is movement here, there is mystery here, there is a miracle here. We're going to bring the back knee into the chest. This is going to take a little push, so you're pushing through the bottom of your back foot to bring your back knee all the way up to a balance. Hold on to your right shin with your left hand and reach your right arm back behind you, starting to spiral from your belly and through your heart and through your throat and maybe through your eyes and then lots of movement here, right?

Lots of movement in a balance, easy in your jaw, connect to your breath, come back to center and release your right foot down to meet your left foot, lift your arms up to the sky, fold forward, Uttanasana. Lengthen halfway, Ardha Uttanasana, step back to downward facing dog. We're going to come back into a cobra or upward facing dog, so if you like traveling forward to plank, you also have the option to stay in down dog, finding your cobra or if you'd like an up dog. When you're ready, let's meet back up in a downward facing dog. We'll find an inhale and then transitioning back to the front of your mat for a standing forward fold.

Again, hands to feet, thank you, hands to shins, thank you, rolling up, hands to thighs, thank you, rolling up, hands to belly, thank you, rolling up, hands to heart, thank you, hands to head, thank you. And then rising all the way up, lift your arms up to the sky, Urdhva Hastasana and releasing your hands down. Again, finding this movement, allowing there to be sway side to side, shifting of weight, big breath. And then we'll shift weight into the right foot, bring left knee up and begin to send your left leg back, coming into your warrior two, so bring your back heel down. Sometimes that transition takes a little wiggle in the feet so you can find the distance that's just right for you today, and then arms opening up to the side.

So again, let's find that inner glow of gratitude. And again, no matter what's happening here in your life, there's always something to be grateful for. Thanks to this ground for holding me, thanks for these legs for holding me. Thank you, breath. And then from that inner glow of gratitude, reach into your edges.

So this is how we can be in the world. Brings us out into our fingertips, down into our feet, radiating out. We'll start to shift weight into the front foot, push off the back foot to bring your back knee into your chest. Hold on to your left shin with your right hand and begin to reach your left arm back behind you. Again, here we are spiraling through belly, through heart, maybe through throat, maybe through eyes.

Easy in your jaw, still with your breath, still including your eyes. Coming back through center and release your left foot down. Lift your arms up to the sky, fold forward over your legs, lengthen halfway, Ardha Uttanasana. Step back to a downward facing dog. And then one more time here, if you want to find a plank to cobra to up dog, feel free or skip it.

I'm going to come forward to plank and find an upward facing dog, still rooting through the tops of my feet to find the back bend behind my heart. And downward dog is where we will meet. Find an inhale breath and make your way to the front of your mat, stepping forward, lengthen halfway, Ardha Uttanasana. And fold. So never too many thank yous, hands to your feet, thank you, hands to your shins, thank you, rolling up, hands to thighs, thank you, hands to belly, thank you, rising up, hands to heart, thank you, hands to face and head, thank you, hands up to the sky, Ardha Hastasana.

And feeling yourself standing between earth and sky, thank you, earth, thank you, infinite space, all of which I am a part of, and bring your hands together in front of your heart. Release your hands down to your sides, inhale, lift your arms skyward, fold forward over your legs, lengthen halfway and step your right foot back to a lunge. Let's lower the back knee down and find a little hover of your hands and inhale to lift your chest. As you exhale, bring your hands back down, push through your hands and your feet to lift your hips up high. And you're just lengthening your legs as much as is reasonable today for you.

Bend both knees and on an inhale, hover your hands and start to lift your chest. As you exhale, bring your hands down, pushing down through hands and feet to lift your hips. A few more times like that, so inhaling, knees bend, lifting your chest, finding a little back bend here. As you exhale, release your hands, rooting down, lift your hips. Bend both knees, inhale, lift your chest, exhale, release your hands, lift your hips.

This time, just bend your front knee and take a quarter turn to your right. Organize your feet so they're parallel to each other and then bring your hands underneath your shoulders and begin to explore the lengthening of the front of your spine. So lengthen forward through the center of your belly. Lengthen forward through the center of your heart. Lengthen forward through the center of your throat.

And then turn your heels in, toes out, bend your knees, walk your hands up to your thighs and then lift your shoulders up over your hips for Goddess. Reach your arms out wide to the side and then lift your arms up to the diagonals. Now turn your palms towards your head and bend your elbows. It's like you're holding a big round circle above your head. Let's reflect on all the ways that we have been recipients of kindness, of presence, of love and imagine that it's like I imagine rainbow light coming down from the stars, passing through my hands and then I'm inside a shower of blessings, a shower of blessings.

So this is, you're imagining it, maybe seeing it like gold sparkles or rainbow light pouring through your hands and you're bathing in it and receiving this shower of blessings. Push down into your feet to extend your arms on the high diagonals like you're a star, a shining star. So from this deep core sense of gratitude, radiating out is something to offer the world. Bend your knees, bend your elbows, just a moment again to bathe in the shower of blessings, remembering that you are a recipient of so much kindness, love, compassion and care and then push into your feet and again radiate that out and bend your knees. This time we're going to bring the hands all the way back down to the floor to again bring your legs into parallel rotation, let the spine be nice and long and find your sways where you'll bend your left knee a little bit and then pass through center and bend your right knee, shift to your right foot.

One more time each side, travel through center, bend your left knee, travel through center, bend your right knee and then take a quarter turn to your right, frame your right foot now and lower your back knee down. Cat-Cow lunges this side. On an inhale, push down to start to lift your chest, finding a little back bend here. As you exhale, bring your hands to the floor, push down to lift your hips, extend your front leg as much as is reasonable today. Bend your knees and as you inhale, lift your chest.

As you exhale, release your hands, lift your hips. And a few more times, inhale, knees bend, chest lifts, exhale, release your hands and lift your hips. And again, inhale, knees bend, chest lifts, exhale, hands down, hips lift. And this time, bend your front knee, take a quarter turn, organize your feet so they're parallel to one another, hands come underneath your shoulders, again, lengthening forward to the center of the belly, center of your heart, center of your throat. Turn your heels in, toes up, walk your hands to your legs, coming up for Gada, shoulders over hips, arms opening wide to the side, palms turn in, being the recipients of blessings.

Push down into your feet, extend your arms and find your standing star, opening your arms wide, radiating this inner light out. And again, bend your knees and turn your palms towards your crown, receiving a shower of blessings. And then pushing through your feet, extend like you're just opening up, offering the gratitude to the world. And one more time, bending your knees, bathing in a shower of blessings. And then coming up, and bend your knees, this time bring your hands all the way down to the floor.

Again, lengthen your legs, bring your legs parallel to each other, a little shifting of your weight side to side. Bend your right knee, shift to the right, bend your left knee, shift to the left and take a quarter turn. Bend your hands and find your downward-facing dog, a little sway, some big generous breaths. And then walking your hands all the way to the back of your mat, lengthen halfway, Ardha Uttanasana. Exhale, fold forward, Uttanasana.

Exhale rise all the way up to stand, root down, rise up, arms skyward and release your arms down. So we'll shift our weight a little bit side to side again, so shifting weight into the right foot and then pouring weight into your left foot. Keep shifting your weight as you lift your arms up to the sky. And now shifting your weight into your left foot to hover your right foot forward. It's like you're going to take a step but you don't just yet.

Notice the length of your arms. We're going to see if we can keep them there, up framing your face. And now push through your left foot to bring weight onto your right foot. So take a step, now the left foot is back, lift your left leg to come into Warrior III. So the left leg lifts as the torso lowers.

Again we're going to see if we can keep the arms framing our face. Little breaths here, that might mean you're on a diagonal. And then bring your left foot down to meet your right foot, let your arms drop, bend your knees to find a shake. Dropping into the ground, bringing everything into movement all at once. So everything moving, everything shaking.

Find your fluidity and then push down into your feet to pause. Again shift your weight side to side, lift your arms up to the sky. The next time you shift your weight into your right foot, hover your left foot forward, feel where your arms are, framing your face, we'll see if we can keep them there. As we push through the right foot and then take a step, shift your weight into your left foot, begin to lift your right leg up, arms stay up, framing your face, Warrior III, pausing anywhere along the way. Few breaths, maybe even finding your thank you here.

Right leg lifting and bring your right foot down to meet your left foot. Shift your arms up, standing tall, here you are, a conduit between earth and space. And now bend your elbows, bend your knees and find a little shake, shake, shake, shake. Letting everything come into movement and maybe even finding a smile in this shake. Smiling for all the ways that you are a recipient of kindness.

Smiling for all the ways that you are supported. And push into your feet to pause, float your arms out in front of you and look to your arms, look to your hands, say thank you for their creativity, their way of engaging in the world and then begin to float your arms in symmetry. So we've done this before as part of the show, letting the arms float and now finding your own way to float your arms and hands in symmetry and feeling into their creativity, their dance that's so unique to you. In a way it's like you're finding your inner star, your inner creativity, the way that you are here in a very unique way to offer your gifts and here we are making a creative gesture with the arms into space and then we could imagine or feel that this creative gesture is being received in the same way we've been playing with receiving the gifts that we are recipients of. It's like that space is receiving you in your creative gesture.

Lift your arms up to the sky here for Urdhva Hastasana, noticing the length between your feet and your hands and bring your hands back down to your heart. Widen your feet and prepare for a squat, so turn your toes out and your heels in. Find a nice big inhale. As you exhale, bend your knees, coming down low, find your squat and then push down into your feet, come back up to stand. This time we'll head to our seat.

Bend your knees, traveling down, bring your hands behind you and have a seat. Bring the soles of your feet together, let your knees open up wide, finding Baddha Konasana. Bring your hands back behind you and root down through the finger pads to explore a widening through your collarbones and your chest, a buoyant heart. You're welcome to stay there. If you'd like to tip your hips forward, you are welcome to come forward, so your hands can come forward, maybe lowering down to your forearms.

Some big breaths here. Again, pouring your attention into little gratitudes, into the heart of gratitude, into the warmth of gratitude. Slowly start to come all the way back up if you have folded. Bring your hands to your outer knees and bring your knees together. Slowly start to transition all the way down onto your back, so bring your hands forward and slowly begin to roll down your spine.

Prepare yourself here for bridge. Push down into your feet to lift your hips, bend your elbows so your fingers are facing up towards the sky and root down through the upper arms to allow your heart to have a little more lift. The front of your chest gets a little more open and slowly lower down. We're going to come up one more time, find a full round of breath here and push into your feet to come back up to your bridge and then again we'll root down through the upper arms, opening your chest and release your hips down. Hug your knees into your chest, send your legs over to your right for a supine twist, being with the ground and the support of the ground and being with your breath.

Bring your legs back to center and send your legs to the other side, again some nice big generous breaths. And let's come back to center. Hug your knees into your chest and prepare yourself for Shavasana, resting. Another moment to say thank you for all the little and big ways that you have been supported or that support is here right now. Feeling yourself here between earth and sky and your body is part of that, part of earth and part of sky.

Bring your hands to your heart, say thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for all the ways that you are receiving support in this moment, embody thank you, thank you to this body, thank you to this heart, thank you for this breath. This is how we love others. This is how we radiate gratitude into the world by embodying it. Find another big round of breath here and then find a little movement and start to transition to your side body. Come all the way up to your seat, inhale, open your arms up nice and wide, exhale, bring your hands together in front of your heart, let's close with a bow.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you coming up, thank you so much for sharing in practice with me.