Calming Earth

Welcome friends. Let's start with a deep breath. Long inhale. Fill up. Fill up. Fill up.

And exhale. Let it all go. Let's start here. Come to your back. Hug your knees into your chest and just give yourself a big squeeze. Welcome yourself to your practice.

Welcome yourself to this time that you consciously carved out of your day. And go ahead and put your left leg all the way out long on the earth. Take your right leg up to the sky ceiling and interlace your hands at the belly of your right hamstrings, maybe point and flex your right foot or circle around your Linda then feel the back of the head, the backs of your shoulders, find a nice comfortable spot, and then pause with your right foot flexed, and we'll get an asymmetrical hamstring stretch here. I want you to feel the earth element in the back of your body, the way your shoulders head, back of the pelvis all land. And then slow down your breath, taking a few deeper inhales.

And longer exhales. And just breathe into your body exactly as it is in this moment. All the sticky spots Say hello. And we'll take about two more breaths here. You might push your right leg into your hands a little, activate the stretch a bit more.

Make sure your face is nice and soft, your mouth, your jaw, your eyes. Good. Go ahead and release that right leg as you're ready. Feel the differences in your legs for a moment. And then hug your left knee in and take your left leg up towards the sky and point flex your foot or circle your ankle around. So we are consciously taking some time as we enter our practice.

And even though this is a shorter practice, We can really consider quality moments over quantity of moments. Let's hold it here. You can flex your foot and activate the stretch, push your leg into your hands a little. And in these quality moments, find quality breaths, slower, deeper, smoother. We really wanna feel a sense of calming earth energy, giving our nervous system a nice healthy break from all it's doing, and moving from one thing to the next and overthinking.

Last two breaths. Good. And then just slowly releases. You're ready. Hug both knees back to the chest. Maybe widen your knees. Feel out your inner thighs and groins a bit.

Take another deep breath. Alright. And then go ahead and grab behind your knees and rock yourself up, and we'll find our way to all fours hands and knees. Take your time. That is the mantra of this practice. Spread your fingers nice and wide, knees under your hips as you're ready, reach your heart forward into cow pose, big inhale.

Slow exhale round back into cat. Feel the roots of your palm support. Inhale come forward again. Feel the breath. Exhale as you round Baffa.

Nice and mellow pace here. Feel free to close your eyes and really let the pace of the movement and the breath Nurture your spine in a healing way. When we slow down, we get more opportunity to really listen to the body. Finding some truer, more honest connection to what we're experiencing. One more breath. Take your way into downward dog, tuck your toes, press your hips up and back.

Let your head really drop down. Maybe feel your heels move down. There can be a generous bend in the knees. Feel it out. One more breath.

And then just gently walk your hands back to your feet forward fold at the back of your mat. Dangle there. Drop the head. And then gently bend your knees and roll yourself up. Feel the roots of your feet. Feel the earth element support.

The stacking of your spine, all the way up through the crown of your head. Once you get up there, maybe move your head like a little bobble head. Take a few shoulder rolls. Maybe some weird mouth movements. Just let it all unwind.

Good. And then bring a prayer to your heart. Bow your chin towards that prayer. Say the words in your Linda. Slow down. And on your next inhale, take your arms out and up, reach them to the sky, as you exhale bow and fold, feel the feet here supporting this slow, lower down. Good. Take a halfway lift.

Fingers can come up your shins, inhale. Linda exhale back down. Inhale, we're gonna rise. Moving with the breath just nice and slow here. Exhale, bring a prayer to your heart. Slow down. Inhale reach up.

And exhale bow forward. Inhale halfway up. Exhale fold deeper. Inhale rise up. XL prayer to the heart. One more. Big inhale.

And long exhale forward fold. Inhale halfway lift. Exhale fold deeper. Good. Call yourself back out. Find your downward dog.

Again, take your time. Inhale to shift forward to plank, firm your belly. Hold here. Couple breaths, knees up or down. Find the roots of your palms. The earth element coming into you long spine on the next inhale shift forward slightly as you exhale slowly lower.

You can go Chaturanga or to the floor. Take a cobra or an up dog, lift your heart. Pause for a couple of breaths. Really feel the tops of the feet and the hands lifting your heart forward and up. One more breath.

Baffa to down dog, take your time, tuck your toes, big inhale here, and exhale. Let it go. Walk your hands back to your toes, forward fold back of the mat, halfway lift, inhale. And exhale fold deeper. Good inhale rise up. Reach your arms.

Exhale prayer to your heart. Let's do that one more time. Big inhale reach out and up. Long exhale forward fold. Inhale halfway lift, exhale fold deeper.

Calmpace. Crawl yourself out. Find your downward facing dog. On the inhale, shift forward, find your plank. Hold it for a breath. Next, inhale, shift forward.

Exhale slowly lower chaturanga or to the floor. Take your cobra or up dog. Hold it for a breath. Good. And then down, back to downward facing dog. Hold downward dog.

And crawl your hands back, forward fold Baffa at the mat. Halfway lift, big inhale. XL, fold back in. Inhale rise, root through the soles of your feet. Exhale prayer to your heart.

Take another breath here. Feel the slowing. Good. Now let's step wide onto our mat, big wide straddle. Let's take warrior two with the right toes straight towards the back edge of the mat, bend your right knee, take your arms wide side to side, and then just pause and land into the soles of your feet.

Feel the earth energy coming into you, that strong support system, maybe feeling safe here to close the eyes to drop in. One more luxurious breath. I'm almost straighten out the right leg. Take the right hand down, find triangle pose, right hand can come anywhere on the shin, or maybe a block or the floor, take your left arm straight up, and again feel the earth element coming into the feet. Muscles hug the bones.

You might lighten up on that right hand a little as your legs get more supportive as your core turns on. Maybe keep closing your eyes. You have both feet touching the earth. One more breath. Good on the inhale come back up.

Let's pivot around to the other side of the mat warrior two. Left toes point straight to the front edge of the mat. You can open your arms here and pause. Again, we will land. Not always something we are used to, holding, being, slowing down, taking our time. So coming back to that idea of quality moments over quantity, we all have the same amount of time in our day. Right? And some people are moving at an easeful pace, and a lot of us are nuts.

I find the easeful pace to be a little more sustainable as well. When you're ready, you're gonna straighten out your left leg. Take your left hand down to your left shin, right arm stacks. Tricking us in a triangle. An oldie, but a goodie. Right? We've done this shape so many times. So breathe into what's here today and listen to that beautiful honesty that's there in your body.

It's talking to you. It wants you to pay attention, and we often need to slow down enough to pay attention. One more breath. We'll slowly come back up on the inhale, place your hands on your hips parallel your feet back to the side edge of your mat, toes point straight ahead, big inhale, lift your heart here. As you exhale bow and fold, prosarita padottanasana.

Drop your head. Feel free to slide your hands down the backs of your legs and pull yourself in somewhere. So maybe even the big toes, you can grab with your peace fingers, shoulders away from the ears. Feel free to offer a mental purge here. Just dropping unnecessary thought patterns, especially any anxiety patterns into the future, any worries, any overthinking, just let it go. Feel the earth come into your feet, into your legs. One more breath.

Hands come back up to your hips. Big inhale. We're gonna rise all the way back up. Baffa then heels in, toes out goddess pose. So the knees come right over the second and third toes. And you can slide your hands just above your knees here. And again, you wanna feel the earth.

You wanna feel rooted. Opening the hips, opening the pelvis. Feel free to stay here or a few shoulder dips. Left shoulder comes down towards your right knee, and then right shoulder towards your left knee. Good. And then just go side to side a couple more times like that. Good.

And then just pause at center, take about three more breaths. If you wanna challenge yourself, you could bring a prayer to your heart, sit a little bit lower, tailbone rooting straight down towards that earth energy, belly hugs in. Soft face. Breathing through and into any challenge you feel here. Good. And then push into your feet to slowly start to come out.

Let's come to the back of the mat. Back of the mat, facing to the front of the mat, prayer back to the heart, slow down, close your eyes, take a breath. Inhale the arms reach out and up. And exhale bow to fold forward. Inhale halfway lift.

Exhale fold deeper. Good. Feel the hamstrings here. Feel the feet. Maybe grab the backs of the legs again. Slowly, we're gonna crawl ourselves back out to downward facing dog, land there.

Notice some of the shifts. Not just in your body, but in your nervous system. From here, we're going to come down to a seat so you can lower your knees and just sit your hips back, swing your legs out in front of you. Let's take the right leg out and the left foot to the inner thigh, John Euschershasana. You can pull the flesh from your sit bones.

If you have extremely tight hamstrings, you might put a little blanky under your hips as an option. You could bend your right knee. And I also like two blocks as an option here. You can put them alongside your leg. And then you're just gonna come down towards your right leg any amount, round forward, any amount. If you've got the blocks there, you could put your elbows on top. You could hold your head with your hands.

So just offering a little bit more support, because the Earth element just always gives us that support that we need. And you can drop in here. You can close your eyes. You can slow down your breath. You can. Forward folds are just always such a nice reminder of What it feels like to go inward, what it feels like to calm down, sort of like a little hermit crab going into his little hermit shell.

Like I'm safe here. I'm supported. I can pause. Let's take one more breath. Good. And then slowly slowly roll your spine back up. Alright. We'll go to the other side.

Left leg out. Right foot in. And come back down. Mhmm. Put your hands on your head, or you can just round whatever you did on the other side. Just keep allowing yourself to be here and land in the experience of this shape, this moment. I'll take two more breaths.

Gently release, slowly roll yourself out. So to end your practice, you're welcome to come into a shavasana or even just a seated meditation. Close your eyes and let your breath feel effortless. Natural flow in and out, land your body, Linda some stillness. And feel the word slow down.

Just resonate through every soul of your being. Take your time. Take all the time that you need. Noma stay friends. Stay well.