Inner Radiance: Replenish

Namaste, and welcome. This will be our internal radiance, our Goonham replenish sequence. Let's get started. Rub your palms together. Take a couple of deeper breaths.

And then take your hands right into Anjali Mudra at your chest. You can close the eyes, roll the shoulders back, lift the sides of the waist, get long in the spine. And we'll tune in with our kundalini mantra, NaMo calling on infinite creative consciousness. We'll do that three times. And then we'll do the prayer to call in wisdom and protection or.

You're welcome to join along or just listen. Full breath. Namo. I'm Oh, You got you got good in, good. Take a very full breath in.

Open your mouth. Make some sound as you breathe it out. Good. Okay. Let's get started. So you're gonna start with hands on your thighs and quite simple. This is a an exercise to remove any pension from the area of the throat.

So we're gonna start off with single shoulder shrugs, inhale, and exhale, and inhale, and exhale. And then we're gonna move into double shoulder shrugs, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. So we're gonna do the single ones 54 times, and then the double ones 54 times for a total of 108 very sacred auspicious number. Here in the beginning of practice. So get yourself settled, sit up nice and tall, eyes can be open or closed for this one, and let's begin.

Inhale. Excel. Inhale. Excel. This is 3 and 4, and 5, and 6, and 7, and 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, double shoulder shrugs, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. This is 3456 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 202, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41. 4243, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, and then just let the shoulders drop.

See if you can draw up the full elegance of your neck, right, creating some space for Vashuti Stucka. And see if you can draw the full elegance of the neck up out of the shoulders. Clearing some space for Vishuti Chakra, our 5th Chakra. The element is ether, and this is our ability to communicate, to get our truth out when it's needed. Take a full breath in.

Again, open your mouth. Make some sound as you breathe out. Okay. Next, let's come on to hands and knees. So you can slide any padding that you're sitting on off to the side. Come on to hands and knees, spread the fingers out, wrists under shoulders, knees underneath the hips, Now before anything else happens, since yourself at your core a bit here, so push the fingertips down Get a little bit of extension up through the shoulders, lengthen the neck, and then you can just watch this one. So you'll turn your head to the right and say, and then to the left and say Nam and then to the right and say wahae and then to the left and say guru.

So it looks like this. Satnam Wahguadu. And satnam Kundalini Muntra, meaning truth. I am that. And Wahaiguru is calling out to the inner teacher.

Waje is like saying, like, praise the inner teacher. I'm praising my inner radiance. Okay. So coming back on to hands and knees, find your center here, plug the shoulders back, and we're doing this for 3 minutes. So if you need to slow it down or pause at any time, you'll do that. Otherwise, let's get started. Set namwaje guru.

Satnamwaje. Guru, sat, Nam, wahi, guru, sat namwaje, guru, sat, Namwaje, guru, sat Nam Waje Guru. Set Nam Waje. Guru, sat, Nam, wahi, Guru, sat, Nam, wai, guru, sat, Nam, wai, guru, sat, Nam, wai guru, sat Nam, wai guru, sat namwaje Guru. Set Namwaje.

Guru, sat Nam, wahi, guru, sat Nam, wahi, guru, sat Nam, wahi, guru, sat Nam, wahi, Guru set, Nam, wahi, guru, set, namwaje guru, sat Namwaje guru, sat namwaje, guru, sat Namwaje, Guru, sat Nam, wahi, guru, sat namwaje. Guru. Set Namwaje. Guru, sat Nam, wahi, guru, sat Nam, wahae guru, sat Nam, wahae guru, sat Nam, Waje, Guru, Sutt Nam, Waje, guru, sat Nam, wahi, guru, sat Nam, Waje Guru. Last 10, 98, 7654321.

Coming back into center. Give yourself a breath there. Study your gaze. And then you can cross the left ankle on top of the right and have a seat behind your feet, coming to sit, Take your fingertips back behind you. So now we've begun to loosen up the area of the throat, the area of the shooty chakra, And so, we're gonna now release any stuck energy that's been there.

Take your feet about as wide as your mat toes can point directly forward, push down into the tips of the fingers and roll the shoulders back, lift the chin. So it's not really dropping the head back as much as it is an extension of the throat. So you can take the chin up away from the sternum squeeze the shoulder blades together. Give yourself a full breath in and a full breath out, and then we're gonna breathe for about 2 minutes here with an inhale through the nose and an exhale through the mouth. So here we go. Then you'll stay with that at your own breath pace, but see if you can even visualize as you breathe out anything stuck anything negative that gets caught in the throat, send it out with your breath.

Use this as a detoxification for any energy that's no longer serving could be a blockage to a conversation that you need to have You know, even if it's a confrontational one, sometimes it's hard to get ourselves to have courage to find the right words so that we can approach a conflict. In alignment with the HymSA, in alignment with non violence. So maybe the prayer today is may I find the right words to be heard. Try to stay with it. Keep the shoulders active, squeezing away.

Heads of the armbone sliding down all that space for the throat. And 5th chakra is also the thyroid, the parathyroid, So this is good for metabolism. Helps to support healthy function and the metabolism. Last couple breaths here. And then one big lie in breath to close it out.

Do it with me full breath in. Open your mouth to get your tongue roll up your eyes. And you can release that. Just give your shoulders a little bit of a shakeout. And then once again, cross the ankles and come forward onto your hands and your knees, and we're gonna make our way down to our bellies.

And come right into a sphinx pose. So in the sphinx pose, elbows are slightly forward of the shoulders here just so that you can imagine, like, dragging the elbows back and tugging the chest forward, right, automatically the breast bone moves forward and up. I'm pushing my hands down, trying to keep that space of the throat as clear as possible. Elbows no wider than the shoulders here. And so we're gonna be here for about 2 minutes, and here's the invitation.

You can stay exactly as you are. Or if you're feeling it, take your hands a bit wider, push down into your hands, and lengthen your arms. So you're kind of coming up into a shallow cobra. Now If you're taking that variation of it, turn your inner arms outward so that the shoulder blades start to come together even more. If you've got the room, you can walk the hands back a little bit further. Alright? But do remember we are staying here a little bit longer than perhaps you might normally in a regular COBRA.

So go to where it feels like you it's something that you can hold and have the stamina with. Right? And then I'm tugging the the chest forward and up, lifting the chin, and we've got 2 minutes And you can begin long, smooth breath. And I'm keeping the anchoring of the legs. Right? So legs are heavy. Palvis is heavy.

You can visualize energy traveling from the tips of the toes up through the legs. Past the space of the hips, past the strength of the navel, Past the prana giving center of the chest. And right up into the throat, elongate the neck, You know, so much of our lives these days, we are looking down. Right? It happens. Yeah. We look at our phones. We look at computers.

We're looking to see where we're going. So sometimes It's just a a beautiful change of perspective to look up. Focus the energy upward. Stay with your breath here. Let it sustain you.

Breath can be long and full and Gentle. I'm sure it's an extreme post to hold. But when we keep the breath calm, it's I mean, that's that's why we stay with this long, smooth breathing. So that when we're in a challenging place, we can still find our brass. Last little bit of this.

See if you can stay with it. And then for these last ten seconds, if you want it, breath the fire, quick sniffing breath in and out through the nose. For 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Full breath in. Another loud, noisy breath out.

And then release your elbows down if you came up to cobra, stack your right hand on top of your left hand. Turn your head to the right. Can wiggle out the hips, perhaps repeat the mantra sucked in your head. And then stack your left hand on top of your right hand, turn your head to the left. Shaking out the hips.

Alright. Once we free up stuck energy, we wanna redistribute it. So just A gentle rocking could feel really good here. One more time, Wahay, turn your head to the right stacking right hand on top of left, little wiggle, And then left hand on top of right, turn your head to the left, guru. Coming back into center, hands underneath your shoulders, and we're pushing back into a downward facing dog. Our old favorite downward feasting dog.

So for this one, take your feet slightly wider than usual. Toes are pointing forward. Spread the fingers out and then go through your points of alignment with downward facing dog. So tailbone reaches back and up, heels are pressing back and down, chest pushing towards the thighs, and we're gonna swing between down dog and up dog. But for our up dog, we're gonna keep the toes topped.

And I invite you not to go into the deepest upward facing dog you've ever done in your life. Right? Because we're gonna be doing this for 3 minutes back and forth between down dog and updog. So start off at a nice calm pace. And then if we feel like it, if the towards the end, we can begin to speed it up. Take a full breath in, Exhale it away, and let's begin. Down dog, dropping the hips towards the wrist, rolling the shoulders back, lifting the chest and the chin to up dog, and back to downward facing dog.

And then we stay with that moving between the 2. Drop the hips forward. Push the fingertips down. Lift the chest. Lift the chin. And back to downward facing dog and be very intentional about this movement coming forward.

Engage through the core enough to cinch and hold the lower back and then push back, and the exhalation will automatically create a little uddie on a bender there. That flying up lock right there in the center of the body It's very supportive for the lower back. And if this is feeling like too much at any time, This could also be substituted with a cow and a cat. Right? So you could start off in your cat pose and move to cow pose. And that might be where you hang out for 3 minutes.

But going from a forward bend feeling into a back bend feeling. And the breath will organically fall into a pattern here. I find that I exhale as I come forward. And then the last bit of it is an inhale. And then pressing back exhale downward facing dog.

And we just stay with that moving between the two. And your UJai can accompany this. Alright. That also helps to stimulate our vashuti chakra. Our victorious breath. And that sound can be an accompaniment.

You know, and visually means pure. One of my teachers used to say that What was so beautiful about the 5th chakra is that it's right in between the heart and the head. It's right in between the 4th and the 6th chakra. And so it ideally We use the best of both. We use our heart and our head when we speak and when we listen. Last one of these cropping the hips forward, lift the chest, lift the chin, and then you guessed it lie in breath, breathing in.

Open your mouth. Drop your knees, hips to heels, child's pose. Give yourself a moment there. Feel the entire body responding to the breath expanding and contracting through the periphery. And then take hands underneath your shoulders and roll yourself up.

Our next exercise is actually one of my all time favorites, and this one is called seed to tree, seed to tree. I'll show it to you once you're gonna start in child's pose with your hands folded back behind you towards your feet. Make a fist with your hands with the thumbs inside your your fist. From here, we're pushing down into the knees As I rise up, I'm reaching the arms up, reaching the arms up, reaching the arms up. At the top, a bit of a backbend, I open up my hands.

I look up. If you're comfortable with letting your head fall back completely, you can do that. And then we just reverse that movement. Thumbs come into the center of the palm and will come all the way back down, touching forehead to earth in a bow. Back to seed.

So we'll do this one for 3 minutes, and the pace is up up to you here. It could you could move a little slower. You could move a little faster. If you're feeling it today, this could be a big backbend, or you might need to keep it a little bit more upright. Yeah. Let's do it together and and seed to tree.

It's exactly what it sounds like that we take the smallest little, seed of an idea, seed of a project seed of a new beginning, And step by step, we let it bloom. Full breath in. Excel it away. We've got 3 minutes. Let's go.

As you move through this one, You might find that there's some sort of intention that just comes through. There's something in your life that you've been wanting to develop. Something that needs to be born. Everything has to start somewhere. And sometimes things develop at a pace that might feel like it's too slow.

Sometimes it's just that we can't see our own growth because it's just happening so slowly. But think about it this way. Would you deny the beauty of any of the phases of the moon? The new moon. That gives us just the tiniest sliver of light.

And then day to day to day to day to day night to night to night to night to night. It shifts. The light grows. Until it's revealed in all of its fullness. But every step along the way, we can notice It's glow.

We can notice its radiance. And we trust that. We trust those cycles. We know that it will go from New Moon to Full Moon. In its own time.

Can we give ourselves the same courtesy? The same respect, the same reverence. Next time you come up, stay up, Just give yourself a couple breaths there. Open, generous. Radiant.

And then come on down. And just have a seat on your heels or on a block. You might even turn your palms upward there. Last but not least, find a seat in Vedrasana. And you can sit on a block or a blanket and use it together, feet, or apart, We're gonna come into what's called Chunk Mudra.

So you'll take your right hand, wrap it around your left thumb, Close your left fingers over the top of your right hand and take the pad of your right thumb to connect to the middle finger of your left hand. Let that rest right in front of your throat, and this is Shankk Mudra. Shell Mudra. And it is a merger that is associated with the 5th chakra. Element is ether is space.

We are meant to send our truth out. We'll hold this merger for 3 minutes. And you can stay with a very gentle UGI, a very gentle victorious breath. Focusing the energy right there. At the throat.

And in our yoga practice, The very first limb. Is called the Yamas. And these are codes of behavior. The way that we move through the world. The very first one is ahimsa.

Non violence. Second one is Satya Truth. When I was growing up, I used to hear the expression. If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all. And my yoga practices shifted that.

Because the truth needs to be heard. Our work is can we do it in a non violent way? Can we do it in a way? So that it can be heard and received. Can we learn the language of kindness and respect? Can we learn the language? Of inclusivity.

And as we do, makes us brighter. Last few breaths here. And then you can gently release your mudra. Maybe give your fingers a little sparkle. Taking your hands back into Angeli Muja right at the chest.

We'll close with the mantra. Truth. I am that. And we are. Long Sat, short Nam.

Join me. Nom. Thank you so much for sharing your practice. Namaste.