Healing Yoga Break

Hi there, everyone. Welcome to Yoga With Adriene. I'm Adriene. This is sweet blue healer, Benji. And today we have a healing yoga practice for you. Hop into something extra comfy. If you can, bring two blankets with you. If you don't have them, no worries. If you do have them, great. Go ahead and grab them and let's get started. Alright, my darlings, come on down to the ground and you can set your two blankets up if you have them. However you want. I'm using mine as like a little cushy coziness for the center of my mat and then I'm sitting up on one to feel a little support, little cushion in my hips and up through the spine. And we'll come into Sukhasana, this cross-legged seat. Once you're ready, go ahead and take whatever you need. Take some time to get situated in here. This is a short practice but we don't want to hurry. We want to give ourselves a little soft, sweet time and space for the nervous system, the body and the mind to connect, to regulate, find balance and ultimately ten minutes to feel supported and loved. So you can close your eyes down as soon as you're ready or soften your gaze, whatever you feel most comfortable with. And best you can, try to come to a little place of stillness here for us to tune in and just notice how we're feeling. And if any feelings get too scary or overwhelming, you can open your eyes, you can bring your palms down to the ground, just find a little grounding but it's my honor and pleasure to take care of you in this way, to practice with you, alongside you. So just know that you're safe and we're here together. And then from this point of stillness, however still you are able to become today, we'll start to bring a deep breath into the picture. So inhale in deeply through the nose. And notice how that starts to create soft, easy movement in the body. Exhale slowly. Inhale deeply. And exhale completely. Maybe the eyes are still closed or the gaze is still soft here as you deeply inhale. And exhale. The next time you inhale, breathe in to your fullest capacity. Pause and then see if you can breathe in just a little more. And then slowly with control, let it go. Again, inhale in. Full deep breath here. Pause. Take one more little sip of air. And then slow and with control, best you can with control, let it go. One more time, inhale. Big full breath. And then take a little extra sip. And slow and steady with control, let it go. Beautiful. We're gonna take the right ear over the right shoulder here and take the left hand out to the side, flexing the left fingertips up towards the left ear. Inhale in deeply. Exhale slowly. And then release. Take it to the other side. Left ear over left shoulder, right hand comes out. We flex the palm and breathe. And slowly come back to center. Open your eyes, bring the palms together and we're gonna start to create a little warmth, create a little energy. And if it feels good, I'll invite you to pick up speed and get in there. A little more energy and if that's feeling overwhelming based on how you're feeling in your nervous system, keep it smooth, baby. Keep it soft. So you get to kind of choose what feels of service. Now notice if you're holding your breath, come back to your breath, breathe. And then we'll bring the left hand to the heart space, right hand to the belly. Slowly, gently draw the chin to the chest and feel this generous stretch in the back of your neck. Beautiful. Inhale, directional breath. So breathe down into your belly and into your heart space and then exhale, let it go. Again, breathe down into your belly. Now into the heart space and exhale, let it go. And one more time like that. Inhale, belly, heart space and exhale to let it go. Beautiful. Head over heart, heart over pelvis here sitting up nice and tall. Just check in. Notice how you feel. Let me tell you, a little goes a long way here on the mat. We're going to extend the right leg out long. Just the right leg. Flex your right toes towards your face. Then you're going to take your left hand to the earth, right fingertips reach all the way to the side for a side body stretch. You can also point this left, excuse me, right foot if it's feeling good but otherwise we'll flex. Just nice mindfulness in that foot. And then we're going to take the right fingertips all the way up and over and we're going to take this left hand, so right hand comes to the ground, left hand to the outer edge of your right shin. Now you might have a lot of space here to come all the way down, more like Janu Sirsasana, head to knee. But you also can stay here in a nice yummy twist, especially getting into that thoracic spine, which I don't know about you guys but for me like when I'm feeling like I need to regulate my nervous system and just feeling like I need a little healing time, a little repair, my rib cage, my chest, my heart, the mid-back thoracic always feels like it could use some extra love. That's just me. And then we'll release and switch. So left leg goes out, I'm flexing the foot, right heel comes in, right hand comes to the ground, left fingertips reach up and over. Try to keep your hips grounded here so that's why it can be helpful to sit up on a blanket, just get some support lifting the ground up to you. And then we'll bring it up and over. Same thing, right hand reaches towards the outer edge of the left thigh, left knee or left shin. And if you have more space, you feel inspired and you want to come more into a head to knee pose, let's take it forward. Breathe. Slowly release, keep the left leg extended. We're gonna take the right leg out as well. So you have some options here with your props, you can stay lifted, you can move into a forward fold on the forearms or maybe reaching all the way out with the hips lifted that you kind of get some space. If you're wanting a more restorative situation like maybe Benji might today with his vibe, you might take your second blanket and bring it in a folded manner so that you can rest your forehead on it. So go ahead and take your time. Again, no hurry to find your version of wide-legged single, sorry, wide, I got relaxed there already. Wide-legged seated forward fold. And here we're keeping a little brightness in the feet. I'm flexing, you could point as well. Just keeping that connection in the legs all the way to the hips, slow back, breathe. And then slowly begin to release. Yay, I'm gonna take this, I'm gonna do a little forward thinking, I'm gonna put it at the edge, back edge of my mat for a little pillow for my head later. Now we're gonna come forward onto all fours. We're gonna head to this pillow soon so keep it soft, keep it easy. Hello, Benji. We're gonna come on to the knees into a little half plank looking situation. Then send the gaze out forward. Send the gaze out forward. Send the gaze forward. And we're gonna do a little mini push-up here. I know you're like, what? It's good for the brain though. And then you're gonna sit back into an Extended Child's Pose. And this is gonna be different truly for every individual body. So you're gonna find a position in the knees that works for you. Baby push-up, Child's Pose. And we're gonna find a little rhythm and a balance between the two. Maybe you start to go down a little lower. Maybe you start to realize that you're actually able to do a little more than you thought. Building this resilience. Or learning how to blend something like a push-up with something like a Child's Pose. Finding a rhythm that works for you and once you find a little rhythm, don't quit. Stick with it a little bit longer than you may want to naturally stay with it. We'll see what happens. Maybe start to build a little heat and do one more cycle and that's it. Walk the knees all the way up. Swing the legs to one side and we're gonna come to lie down. Now you have options here. So many options. You can take, I already said I'm using my blanket as a pillow so that's happening for me but for you, you could do something different. You could roll it up long ways like so and create a long person. No, just kidding. Imaginary person to spoon, little spoon. You could create a long bolster like so that you could sandwich your arms and your legs in, in some fashion. That's a fun option to finish like that. Another option is to roll your second blanket up and put it under the knees which you guys already know these things. I'm just reminding you. You have a lot of options. You have the tools in your tool belt and if you don't have blankets, don't worry. You can still come to Shavasana here and find a beautiful, exquisite relaxation pose. Maybe you're in a chilly spot, you want to use your blanket to cover up. Maybe if you have a ponytail, you take it out. Now you really take your time here to get situated in a way that feels good. This is how we're going to end today so take your time to get settled in and as you do get settled in maybe we close down the eyes again or soften the gaze. We part the lips and we give ourselves permission here to surrender and if it's helpful you might even quietly whisper to yourself, I surrender. I trust. I surrender and I trust. The healing journey and the healing process is so individual and so it's so beautiful of you to have taken this time to be with yourself, to check in, giving yourself adequate time and space to feel and to feel embodied, embodiment, connection to your body using the breath and for whatever it's worth, I'm here for you. So grateful to practice alongside you as we all aim to heal and grow and expand and evolve so that we can be of service, of course, to others in their journey. As you're ready, bring your left hand back to your heart, right hand back to your belly. Feel the warmth of your hands and notice how it feels, just this warm touch. And slowly we'll bring the palms together and thumbs to the forehead or the third eye and to close this practice we'll take a deep inhale, lots of love in together. And exhale, lots of love out. Thank you so much for joining me today. We'll see you next time. Namaste.