Restorative Yoga | Gratitude

Oh, hello there my darling friends. Adriene here with Benji in the background. Welcome to Yoga With Adriene. Today we have a lovely restorative gratitude sequence. So in restorative yoga we stay in the poses a little bit longer and it can be nice to have some supportive props. So if you have a couple blankets, a bolster or a pillow, some blocks, a strap or if you don't have a yoga strap just a dish towel or a hand towel will do. If you happen to have a TheraBand in your house, maybe you pull that as well. But if you're still listening, I want you to know if you don't have any of these props you can still get something really great out of this restorative gratitude sequence. So grab your goodies and let's get started. Alright, yay, you came back. Let's get started in a comfortable seat. So to begin, if you have a blanket we'll take just one blanket like so and we'll fold it this away so you have this to sit on. Many of you know this but if you're brand new to this maybe you don't so I just want to be able to walk everyone through. If you don't have anything to sit up on just come into a nice comfortable seat in the middle of your mat or somewhere on a flat surface in your room. We'll just take a second to tune in together. Thank you so much for being here and sharing your practice with me. I hope you find what feels good in this session. Allow the hands to rest wherever they fall naturally. So in a place where you don't feel like you're holding your arms up or in a point of tension just allow them to fall. Wherever feels good and if it feels comfortable let's slowly turn inward by closing down the eyelids or softening the gaze. So again finding what is best for you in this moment today. And if you're sitting up on the blanket you might just notice if there could be any adjustments to the pelvis that would help you sit up a little bit taller. And if you don't have a blanket you can really feel your sits bones rooting down into the earth. And then here we go together. Let's all take a big inhale in, grow taller through the spine. Keep that lift in the spine as you exhale, relax your shoulder. And one more just like that using the inhale to find a little more length as you root down. And using your exhale to soften any tightness, any tension. And from here we'll begin to gently deepen the breath. So this is very individual. So slowly take your time with it. Start to explore the length of your inhale, the length of your exhale. And just as your buddy, as your yoga friend I just want to remind you a relationship with the breath is just like anything else. It takes time, it takes nourishing. So if you find it difficult to drop in with your breath or to do breath work in general just know that you're not alone. Many people get distracted when coming into this conscious breathing and it's about the return. It's about the acknowledgement that you've been distracted and then this willingness to come back and observe the next breath and the next breath. So you can keep that in mind as we work today of course knowing that we'll be in the postures a little bit longer. The too long didn't read version of that is be patient and stick with your breath. Keep nourishing that relationship. You will not regret it. And in fact that could be a good segue into our gratitude practice. I was going to ask you to name one thing you're grateful for here to start and I will. But maybe if you're open to it we can collectively just take this moment to give thanks for our breath. The power of our breath and its relationship to our brain and our body for the way our breath can support us and nurture us and change physiologically change the way we feel. Maybe we just take a moment to have gratitude for our breath and our relationship to it. Maybe you notice just as I did that by being grateful for the breath it changed the quality of my breath just naturally. And I'll invite you to just keep this gentle conversation with your breath going throughout this whole session. As you're ready we will gently begin to bat the eyelashes, flutter the eyes open. And we're going to shift to a supported chest opener or heart opener. But it's going to be gentle because the longer we're in there the more we'll get that gentle unraveling versus the blast. So I have rolled the blanket with you guys many times. We're actually just going to keep it exactly how it is. So you'll pull it out from under your seat. We'll bring it here on the mat with the frilly part out if you have the frilly part. And then slowly we'll use the palms to bring the tips of our shoulder blades to the bottom of the blanket. And then we'll slowly allow the head to rest either on the mat or this is where you can start to pull in some reserves, bringing a pillow or a blanket to the neck. It's okay to make adjustments during these bits. So take a second to get settled in and then just remember that. As you're ready, we'll bring the soles of the feet together, knees wide. And the hands are going to rest gently on the low ribcage. So chances are your blanket will also support a little bit of your arm here. And just know if you have your head lifted on something, right, you're decreasing the distance that your head has to come to the earth. So you can just play around there based on how you feel in the muscles of the throat, shoulders, the upper back, and the chest, the heart space. If you're feeling tightness in the front of the hips or in the hips at all, you can bring your blocks to support you. Again, if you don't have blocks, no sweat. So just taking a second here to find your shape. It's still a restorative posture, supta baddha konasana, reclined cobbler's pose. Without all the props. So find your pose, your shape here today. And then like a little ritual, each time we come into this shape, we're going to do like we did in the first pose, the sukhasana, and just close down the eyes or soften the gaze. Allow yourself to slip into a more still state of being with your breath, moving gently in and out. And then, you know, I'm wanting this practice to serve so many of us in the community, and we're all very different. So there's an option here in each shape to name something you are grateful for, or if it's more preferential for you today in these restorative postures, to instead just embody gratitude with your breath, or even use an affirmation or a mantra, I am grateful, I choose gratitude. You can do that instead. So find what works for you today, play around, noticing sensations in your body with each inhale and exhale, using the exhale to relax, to soften and surrender. Take one more cycle of breath here, and then slowly to come out of this shape, we'll bring the knees together, shift the hips to one side, any side, and come to turn on your side, using the hands to press up. From here, we're going to move into a restorative twist. So if you're not working with props, you can come into a reclined twist of your choice. If you are, we're going to bring the bolster into play here, maybe you put the blanket on top of the bolster, like so, since it's there. And then if you have another blanket, we can take it and put it between the knees. Box can go to the side. So we'll take a second to get in position, coming like so, so that our hip is butting up against the bolster. Then inhale, sit up nice and tall. Keep your hips pointed towards the side of your mat, knees pointed. We're going to lift the heart, lift the chest, and slowly rotate through the spine, maybe finding our way down to the bolster here. And resting either ear on the mat, just going to depend on the mobility in your spine here. Take a second to get settled in. And when you've landed, maybe closing the eyes, finding your breath, a moment again of gratitude. But as you inhale, see if you can feel your breath expand all four sides of your torso, so the front, the back, and the side body. And then softening on the exhale, and again, just playing around with feeling the rib cage and all four sides of the torso here in this restorative twist. Feel that expansion, even if it's slight, on your inhalation. And then, of course, using the exhale to relax and surrender. Then on your next breath, we'll begin to make our way out of the posture. Go ahead and come to center by bringing, the blanket can stay where it is even, bringing the knees together, sitting up tall. Inhale, lift the chest, kind of like we do in cow pose. And exhale, round through the spine, kind of like how we do in cat pose. And then we're going to take it to the other side. You can just melt on over to the other side. I'm going to flip just a bit so that I can stay oriented towards you guys. If you are, just no props in the reclined twist, melt your way through center. Take a couple moments to hug the knees into the chest, and then take it to the other side, breathing deeply. So get those knees supported, get the ankle supported. Bolster right to the side of the hip. And when you're ready in your own time, making your way into the posture with your breath, using that breath to guide you in. And everyone's shape will be a bit different here, depending on how you feel in the low back, how you feel in the mid back, any tightness in the upper back, the neck. So if you brought props, I encourage you to play with them safely. We could even bring a block here for a little more head support. And once you've found your restorative, your supportive twist on this side, close the eyes, take a deep breath in. And just notice the sensation as you breathe here, using that exhale to completely relax best you can into the pose, into the props. Flipping in a moment of gratitude. Breathing into all four sides of the torso. And we'll make our way to our next shape. So for this one, we're going to clear the props except for maybe a little support for the neck. And if you brought a strap or a dish towel or a TheraBand or a tie or a rope, we'll bring that into play here. So I'll use the towel just to show you how it is just as good as the yoga strap. Let's come on down to the ground. Maybe a little pillow for the head. And coming into those hamstrings. Yeah, baby. Low back love. Hamstring love. We'll take the strap or the band or the towel. We'll slowly bring it to the ball of the right foot. Left foot can stay firmly planted on the ground. And then, of course, you can play with extending it or not. Inhale in. Open up through the chest. Breathe into your belly. Exhale. Slow and steady, lifting that right foot up towards the sky. Knee can stay as bent as you like here. Nice and easy. And you want to have at least enough length on whatever prop you are using so that your shoulders are not hiking up here. So that the shoulders can come into that more restorative state. And here we are. So often I will extend my bottom leg out for potentially a deeper stretch, which you're welcome to do. For me, because I want to keep this more supported, I'm going to keep my left knee bent. And then I can really just relax here, allowing my – well, as much as you can – allowing my shoulders to drop down. Closing the eyes. Coming back to your breath. Back to gratitude. Breathe. And on your next exhale, we'll release this leg and just quietly, in your own time, take it to the other side. Perhaps calling something that you're grateful for to mind or just breathing here with the sensations of the body. Embodying gratitude for the breath, for this time, for your body. Perhaps noticing if the sensations on this side are different than the first side. Noticing if any muscles of the body are clenching or tightening. Using your exhale to relax and soften. And on your next exhale, take your time, move with your breath. We'll release. We'll slowly turn to one side or rock and roll gently all the way up. Coming back up to seated, cross-legged seat. We'll inhale from here, lift the chest. Calve pose and exhale, round through the spine here in your seat. Like cats. Cool. Okie doke. You can keep the blanket here for a pillow if you took me up on it. We're going to come into our final posture before we relax, so second to final posture. And you have options here. So if you're not working with props, you can take waterfall. Ta-da. Or legs up the wall. Just shimmy your hips up to the wall and send your legs up the wall. If you're working with somewhat of a full gamut here, we're going to come to Stonehenge. So we're going to bring the two blocks on their tallest position here. And then we'll bring the bolster on top. Thus the name Stonehenge. If you have an extra blanket, you're going to bring it with you to put on your belly. And if you brought a towel instead of a strap, you can bring it to cover your eyes. So we've got all these different options. So we'll take our time getting into position here. Everyone will be different, especially if this is new. It can kind of take a second to get set up into even the simplest of restorative yoga postures. But in time, it kind of becomes second nature because it becomes a vocabulary that you're more familiar with, which makes it easier to pop in and do these things on your own whenever you may need them. Right? Instead of scrolling, I might choose Stonehenge. Okay. So again, bringing maybe the top blanket to the tops of the hips or the belly, just giving us a little feeling of weight here in the navel and the hips for a little extra support. Same thing with the pillow blanket. Just there to offer a little cushion, maybe a little opening in the chest. And if you have the towel, it comes over the eyes like so. Take a moment to get settled in. Peek at me if you need to for any demoing or inspiration, but then come into your shape and rest. Be with your breath. Be in gratitude. Bringing your attention back to your breath here. Allowing yourself to rest easy in this moment. Softening through the jaw, parting the lips maybe. Take three long, smooth, deep breaths. After three long, smooth, deep breaths, take your time. There's really no rush. So as unhurried as you are, as you breathe in, as you breathe out, as unhurried as possible, we'll slowly come out of this on your own. Take the hands to the ears, and you're just going to rub the ears. Rub around the ears. Wiggle your toes. And we're going to meet in a comfortable seat again with the hips lifted just a bit, just like how we started. If you've ever been to a restorative yoga class, you know that at the end of the session, it's like a whirlwind of props and blankets, which I love. So we'll finish with a very chill, very sweet little twist, just to kind of help us transition from this session back to the day. So when you're ready, left hand to the right kneecap, right fingertips. See, I'm feeling it. Right fingertips behind the back on the blanket or the earth. We'll just sit up nice and tall and take a couple breaths here. You can keep the eyes closed. We're just moving some energy up and down the spine here with the breath. And then take it to the other side whenever you're ready. And then we'll release, come back to center, bring the palms together. Let's rub them together just a little bit. Soft gaze or eyes closed is great here, or you can open the eyes and look at me. Thank you so much for sharing your time and energy. I know it can be really hard to slow down even just a little bit, so thank you for taking the time to do so. Let's take one last inhale in. Sit up nice and tall. And exhale, hands come to the heart. Feel the warmth of your own palms on your heart space. Bow the head as we seal this little practice. Thanks again. Take good care. Namaste. Namaste.