Mental Focus

Welcome friends. Let's start at the front of the mat today into Dasana. So go ahead and land your feet about hip distance apart. Take your arms alongside your body. Palms flaring out forward.

Take a moment to ground down into the soles of your feet and close your eyes and just feel yourself Linda here, come back to that earth element. Slowing down for a moment, take a deep breath. And in an effort to cultivate the air element and the ability to harness and focus our attention and our thoughts. I thought we'd start with the Omshanti chants. You're welcome to just listen or you can chant along with me.

Feel your heart nice and wide open. Homeshanti brings in peace, and Hariyom releases all that is negative. As you're ready, blink your eyes open, find a steady gaze out in front of you. Shift the weight into your right foot and start to hug your left knee in. We're gonna go straight into balance today.

If you feel like you are wobbly, you're welcome to walk over to a wall, get some support with one of your hands, Otherwise, just hold here and hug the left knee in. Feel the right foot, stabilize, pull in and up through your belly, and try to stack your rib cage over your pelvis. This is so important for balance. And when we balance, we are asked to focus our attention. So look at one spot and feel your breath and just embrace any wobbles that are happening.

And go ahead and switch. Left foot down. Shake out your right leg a little bit and bring your right leg up. And immediately feel the support system of the earth again just down into that left foot only, you might imagine that you are standing on a brick and you're pushing into all four edges of the brick with your foot. Keep the belly sucked in.

Study your gaze. Couple more breaths here. Good. And then go ahead and release. Right foot down. Shake out your left leg.

Maybe just shake your whole body out for a moment, loosen everything up. Sometimes when we harness our attention and focus, it gets really rigid. So keep it loose. When you're ready, you're gonna sweep your arms up over your head. Take a big inhale as you exhale sit back into chair pose. So this is gonna be our warm up.

We really wanna get the legs going and the belly. I want you to scoop in through the belly and then sweep your arms behind you. Airplane your arms all the way Baffa. Maybe sit a little bit lower. Ground into the feet, inhale sweep your arms back alongside the ears as you exhale sweep your arms back. Inhale sweep them back alongside the ears.

We're gonna keep going, chair sweeps, one of my favorites, And as we do this, I just want you to feel like you're pushing away unnecessary thought patterns, extra clutter in the mind, anything that's overwhelming, anything taking up too much space. Just keep going. You might pick up the pace here. Three, two. One. Good. Hold the chair. One more inhale here. As you exhale forward, fold over the legs. Oh, that should feel good.

Feel free to widen in your feet. Take a halfway lift, reset the spine, and then fold a little deeper. From here, step Baffa, find your downward facing dog. On your next inhale, shift forward and find plank pose. Hold here for a breath.

And then slowly, we're gonna lower all the way down to the belly, maybe the knees first. Inhale for cobra, and exhale back to downward facing dog. Good. Let's take the right leg up in the air behind. So feel that One legged dog rooting through that left foot, lifting through the right foot.

Feel free to bend your right knee. Take another breath. Good. Need to chest. Right knee to chest. Find a little hover here.

Build some heat in the core. One more breath. And then stop your right foot all the way up towards your right thumb, spin your back heel down, flat, warrior one arms to the sky. Good land here. Linda to steady gaze, smooth out your breath.

Option to bring your palms to touch in warrior one and just seal. Linda and up. So everything's pulling from the earth, up into the pelvis, up into the heart, up into those palms, one more breath. Good. And then you're gonna come about halfway down and sweep your arms behind you. Find those airplane arms again. Cover here, pull in through the belly. Good on the inhale sweep the arms back up.

On the exhale sweep the arms behind you, airplane arms. And one more time, big inhale, and a big, sweet Baffa. Let something go. Hold the arms back. Pause there. Let the palms face towards each other, like you've got a ball between your hands.

And lift off warrior three is the destination. So back leg up, coming back to Baffa. Feel free to put your hands on the floor or even a block if you have it, you can give yourself some support. Otherwise, hold here two more breaths. Landing into the right foot, steady your gaze. Beautiful. We're gonna come back to half staff.

So swing that left knee all the way up, back to standing, hold it with your hands. Take a breath here, shift your focus, look at one spot. Good. And then back to warrior three if you want. You can hold here or back to warrior three one more breath. And then bring your feet together and land in, tadasana.

Reach your arms up and over the head big inhale as you exhale bow and fold forward. Take a halfway lift, inhale, exhale. You can go through vinyasa or just step back to downward facing dog. Choose your own adventure. Stay connected to the breath. Lift your left leg up and the knee, open the hip, find that nice long length, push into your right foot a little bit more.

One more inhale here. As you exhale, bring the left knee to the chest, take a little hover, push into the palms. Step your left foot through and then slowly rise up. Warrior one is the destination. Reach your arms. Big inhale.

Pause and Linda, maybe bring the palms together again, steady your gaze, or you can even close your eyes, but harness your attention. And also feel the center of the body really turning on, like you're sucking your feet together, like you're pulling in and up from the pelvic floor, almost like you're wearing a big long jacket with a zipper and you're trying to zipper it from the bottom to the top inside your body. That really helps us find a sense of balance. We're gonna lean forward halfway, hover, and then sweep the arms back, find those airplane arms, on the next inhale, sweep your arms back up, on your next exhale, sweep them Baffa. One more time, inhaling up, and exhaling back.

Good. Let your palms face towards each other. We're lifting off warrior three. Go for it, right leg up, wobbles, maybe keep a bend in that left knee, try to straighten it out, try to even out your hips, scooping through the belly, Two more breaths here. Look down. Long neck. Good.

Half step. We're gonna swing that right knee up and hold it. Shift the gaze. Stay with the breath. Feel that zipper. Keep it with you Baffa to warrior three. One breath if you want it.

Good. And then bring your feet together. Tadasana, landing, mountain, rooting. Take another breath. Alright. Let's come back to chair pose. Lots of legs here.

Stay with me. Stay strong. Sometimes part of clearing out the mind is exhausting the mind, and we can do that by exhausting the body. Prior to the heart. Take a big inhale. We're gonna twist to the right, left elbow wraps over this time, or you can just hover it in the air and let this twist be a way of releasing, releasing dense patterns, letting something go so often our ability to stay focused is the mental chatter, the overthinking, the overwhelm, the distractions.

One more breath. Good inhale back to center. We're going to the other side. Stay strong in your legs. I feel it too.

Breathe into the challenge. Right elbow wraps. We're releasing like an old stale dirty washcloth. One more breath. Good. Come back to chair pose, lengthen your arms, take a big inhale, and just release forward fold as you exhale.

Oh, that should feel good. Legle your feet a little bit wider apart. Grab your elbows. Just do a little sway side to side, bending one knee, and then the other. Good. And then roll your body up.

Just ragdoll stack stack stack, vertebra by vertebra. Alright. Maybe give yourself another little shake. Notice if you've been taking it too seriously. If you're clenching in your face at all, A horse's breath might feel good, like, up just let it go. Alright. We've got one more balance.

Right foot down, left foot up tree pose. So steady your gaze. Harness your attention. That's what we're here for. Hands can be on the hips.

Great option. Prior to the heart or reach your arms all the way out and upgrow your branches. If your left foot doesn't feel like it's in the right spot or your extra wobbly, you can do a little kickstand with your left toes all the way down. And then I love to play a little in my practice. So if you wanna try out what's called fallen tree, you'll put the back of the left hand on the inside of your left inner thigh, and the right arm's gonna gently sweep up and over a little bit towards the left. So we do a little tilt, a little lean And we call it fall in tree, not falling tree. So ideally, we have pause somewhere instead of falling all the way over, but do your best. Come back in if you fall, steady your gaze, feel your breath.

Slowly come back to center, hands to hips or prayer to heart, release the left foot, shake out your right foot, and we'll instantly go to the other side. Land the gaze, right foot, on the left leg, honor where you did it on the first side. Same options as before, prayer to the heart, or reach up. Or play with that fallen tree variation. So the back of the right hand, inner right thigh, left arm up, or over the ear.

A little lean. And it's not how many times we fall. That's how we get back up. And when you're in balance, truly, there's not much else to think about. Just stay here. Stay with the breath.

Slowly unwind, come back, release your right foot, hands to prayer, or hip, shake out your left leg. And then once more, just land here. Let's take Samastitihi. So keep a prayer at your heart. And bow your chin towards that prayer.

So what needs your attention? What are you trying to focus on? What can you actually control in this moment. Let's take one more breath. Reach your arms out and not take a big inhale.

As you exhale bow all the way forward, halfway lift, inhale flat back. And exhale fold back in. Good. Go ahead and come on to your back now. You can just bend your knees, sit your booty down and roll all the way onto the back. And then once you're on your back, I want you to land with your feet, hip distance apart, arms alongside the body.

You can either take bridge or wheel. I'll be doing bridge, inhale, lift your hips up to the sky, and then land here into your feet and into your shoulders. There's a nice fun playful option here to try out lifting just one leg at a time. So if you wanna play with that, you can root through your left foot and just maybe lift your right heel. See how that feels.

We don't want it to dump into the back too much. So keep the core engaged. Keep the left leg super engaged. Maybe the right leg lifts up into the sky just for a breath or two. Focus, breathe.

Alright, leg down, and other side. Maybe just that left heel again, root through that right foot firmly, root through the arms, left leg might lift up. One more breath. Oh, put that left foot back on the earth. Good. And we'll lower all the way down slowly.

Let's hug the knees in, take a gentle happy baby, or you can just hold your knees, rock a little side to side. Put both feet on the floor again. Two knee twist. Your knees are gonna go to the left. Your arms are gonna go out to the sides. Just releasing the back for a moment.

And on the inhale, come back up, exhale, knees to the right. Go ahead and come back to center, supta baddha konasana, bring the soles of your feet together, wiggle the shoulders away from the ears, You can put one hand on your belly and one hand on your heart. Close your eyes. Feel the breath. You're welcome to stay there.

A few more breaths. Or if you're ready to come into Shavasana, you can guide your legs back together and lengthen them onto the earth, taking up space on the earth, just allow yourself to completely land and rest. Let your breath feel effortless. I really feel this moment. Harnessing your attention into the here and the now.

You're welcome to stay here and just receive this rest. If you're ready to move on to your day, you can make your way to a comfortable seats. We'll end our practice with Oamshanti one more time. Feel free to join me or just listen. I'm a stay friends. Be well.