The Magic Two

Welcome to the Magic 2. I'm so happy to practice with you today. Let's start in a nice comfortable seat. Closing your eyes, having your palms turned face down on your lap. Move your awareness in this moment to your breath.

And just allow yourself to begin to witness the inhales and the exhales as they are naturally happening. So not manipulating or changing the breath in any way, but instead dropping in and listening to what is. And as you drop into the breath, feel the body. Move your awareness throughout every corner and every edge of the body. Noticing where we feel tense, where we feel tight.

Perhaps where we feel diminished, where we feel small, and maybe where we feel that we would love to expand into. And just let your awareness be the beginning of that expansion and of that opening. Relax through your jaw. It's often the skin of the forehead. Relax through your shoulders and feel the low belly soften.

Find a slight lift to the chest. So we lift the lower ribs up and off of the pelvis. Creating space to take in fuller, longer in house into the belly. And to release long exhales, drawing the belly in. And let's take 3 more big, full in house. Keep the sternum lifted.

Long exhale. One more time. Big inhale. Big exhale. Gently blink your eyes open. We're gonna move ourselves to sit up against the wall.

So bring yourself up against the wall so that your back can become flush right up against the wall. Your legs come out long in front of you. And as you extend your legs out in front of you, circle your feet a few times one way. A few times the other way. Shake out your legs.

And then look down at your feet and invite a nice flex to the feet. And then as we flex the feet, draw the big toes slightly in towards one another. Roll the inner thighs in towards one another. And then bring your hands by your sides. Press your palms into the mat.

So you really feel your upper back pushing up against the wall. And then notice if the low back, notice if the sits bones are lifting, if the low back doesn't feel like it's plugged into the wall. What I would invite you to do is press forward through your right heel, almost as if you're really tractioning and lengthening the right leg for And as you do that, see if you can slide your left butt a little bit closer to the wall. And then press forward through the left heel tractioning that left side bone out and forward sliding your right butt back and do that a couple more times. So right heel forward left butt back Left heel forward, right butt back.

And then keep the hands grounded, press down, lift through the sternum. So feeling the shoulder blades connecting into the wall, try to soften and roll the shoulders back so we're lifting through the chest. And then as you push down, can you start to pick the lower ribs up and off of the pelvis? There is a slight engagement here of the belly. And then reach your left arm up to the sky. Reach your right arm up to the sky.

Notice if we're tucking the tail, if we feel like we're overly rounding or we're feeling diminished in any way in the torso, press down through the sits bones, reach the fingertips up, draw the lower belly in, and lift up and out of the pelvis as much as you can. Take up space. This is the magic of this shape. Life would have us diminished. It would have us sitting quite a bit. Most of us throughout most of our days.

And so this is one of the best ways to just open up lengthen and take up that much deserved space. And now grab for opposite elbows. See if you can bring your forms back to the wall so that we could push the forms into the wall and from pushing the forms and the wall. We could lift the navel in the sternum a little bit more. If it feels good, let the back of the head rest on the wall. Keep flexing through your feet.

Keep those big toes turning in. Keep the inner thighs turning in, and just lift lower ribs up, up up and off of the pelvis. Breathing 5 more breaths here. Last one. Big inhale. Exhale.

Keep the legs active. Just release the arms down for a moment. Roll the shoulders. Forward and back. And then adjust however you need to.

So again, perhaps the butt has moved slightly away from the wall, so left heel forward, right butt back, right heel forward, left butt back. This time, reach the arms out in front of you. Take your right arm under the left arm eagle arms once, twice. Maybe the palms connect. Maybe we're grabbing the thumb with the right hand. Start to press down through the sits bones, reach the elbows forward.

So the upper back's gonna move slightly away from the wall. Keep the legs flex. Keep the feet flex. Keep the inner thighs rolling in. Reach the elbows for it and then reach reach reach the elbows up. Lift the lower ribs up and off of the pelvis. Perhaps those left fingertips can reach up and go back towards the wall, breathing here for 5.

For 4, 3 for 2, and for one release. Let your legs relax. Just pause. Take that in. So now we have expanded.

We've lifted up and out of ourselves. And so now we allow ourselves to receive, and I think probably is one of the best shapes ever. So you're gonna start to come down into your side for legs up the wall. Push your butt bones up against the wall So we're up on this left forearm and make sure the butt bones are connected to the wall. We're gonna come down into a little fetal position Keep the butt connected to the wall and start to roll over bringing your legs straight up the wall for legs up the wall. Now just allow yourself to begin to settle into the shape.

Perhaps closing the eyes. And moving your awareness into the low back, into the sits bones, I'm just noticing if the buttock bones are not connecting to the wall. It's okay, but the tendency there is that it will start to drive us a little bit crazy. So start to wiggle. I decide until you can really find that soothing contact of the butt bones to the wall.

If you need to bend your knees a little bit, bend your knees so you can really find that contact even more. And we can perhaps through slightly bent knees, feel the sacrum, feel the low back. Just releasing tension into the earth. Stay with your breath. And allow yourself to give over to the ease and really to the magic of this shape.

We've expanded. We have opened up. We have lifted up and off of our foundation. And now we're allowing ourselves to drop into that suite space of grace and ease. Relax the fingertips.

The toes. With the shoulder soften soften the space between the eyebrows. And feel the backs of the knees softening even more. Just lingering here for one more moment. Start to deepen the breath.

Wiggle the toes, wiggle the fingers. Shift your heads awfully from side to side. And carefully bring your feet down the wall. Let this transition be very slow, very delicate. Roll over onto your left side and just pause.

Pause in a nice little fetal position. And then take your time. Press yourself up into any comfortable seats. Keeping the eyes closed. Turning the palms down on the lap.

Take a moment here to really bow the head in towards the heart. To relax the shoulders down. And as you look into the heart to acknowledge your efforts, and any insight that you may have received with gratitude. Namaste.