Anahata and Vishuddha Chakras

Hello. In this episode, we're going to continue our pathway up the spine, coming now to Anahatha Chakra and Vishuddha Chakra, the heart and the throat. This practice will include a lot of sitting, so I'd like for you to make yourself comfortable in your seat. I have two blankets here. I'm using one underneath my legs and one underneath my seat.

When I meditate, I also support a knee. So if you find yourself uncomfortable, see if you can fix it because we will be here for a little bit of time. At the end of the practice, we'll also use two blocks to help create a supported fish pose. And during the practice, we're going to use the wall for a supported shoulder stand. So this practice does include going upside down.

The first thing I'd like to do is a couple om's. The goal of this is not to make your longest sound or your most beautiful fully developed. I just want for us to be able to feel the vibration in the chest cavity and in the throat cavity. We're trying to look in and give ourselves better, more current information about these places in our bodies. So we'll start with that.

Breathing out. Breathing in together. Om. Om. Om.

That feels nice. Now I want to do ujjayi pranayama. This is one of the first pranayams that's usually taught. There's a good chance that a lot of you already have experience. In my own body, especially when I'm really focusing on the throat chakra and the experience of being in the throat all the way up to the roof of the mouth, I feel into the in-breath in a horizontal plane so that I can travel back and forward and to the sides horizontally inside the mouth, inside the throat as the breath comes in, and when I'm breathing out I feel into the exhalation in a vertical plane.

So the out breath is pressing gently against the roof of the mouth and you can feel around with the out breath, which is you, against the roof of the mouth, which is you, and get a sense for the architecture of the place. And we'll do maybe 10 breaths together. One, two, three.