Namaste.
Welcome.
This is Danya.
Welcome to this Yin Yoga practice for stress relief and rest.
Let's begin by simply arriving.
Find a comfortable seated position or come to lay down on your back with your legs long or your knees bent.
Whatever feels most nourishing for you today.
Use any support to make yourself comfortable.
As you settle,
Allow your body to feel supported by the ground beneath you.
Close your eyes.
Begin by sinking your awareness from the fluttering activity in your mind into the physical resonance of the landscape of your body.
Notice the subtle movements within you.
Heart beating,
Blood pumping,
Energy swirling,
Or perhaps just the soft wave moving through your body with each breath.
Imagine your body as a whole.
Let the sensations be like stars in a night sky.
Vast,
Connected,
Luminous.
Softening the belly to receive your breath more fully.
Visualize the in-breath filling up your belly,
Flowing through your body.
Inhale,
Drawing breath energy up and imagining the exhalation sending breath energy down.
Down your body,
Down into the ground beneath you.
Notice spaces where tension lingers.
No need to label or judge,
To sense.
Turning awareness inward,
Quieting your mind,
And grounding your awareness in your body.
Notice where there is still holding.
See if you can gently release,
Softening your belly.
Let your shoulders drop down from your ears.
Relax your jaw.
Smooth out any tiny muscles around your eyes.
This is your time to explore ease.
Welcoming and nurturing the stillness.
If your mind drifts,
That's okay.
In fact,
Every time you notice you've wandered,
Congratulate yourself for you are being mindful.
Gently guide your attention back to this moment.
Finding your tether in your breath or the sensations in your body.
Maintaining this sense of gentle awareness.
Let's slowly invite some movement.
Turn your head from side to side.
Take a little stretch or gentle twist.
Listening to what your body calls for.
When you are ready,
Make sure a block or bolster is nearby and you are laying on the ground with your knees bent and your feet on the ground about hip distance apart.
Slowly lift your hips slightly and slide a block or bolster underneath your sacrum.
Rest the weight of your pelvis fully on the support.
Arms can rest by your side,
Palms up or extended overhead alongside your ears.
Feel the front of the hips gently opening.
The chest broadening.
The heart space softening.
Notice the sensation of support beneath you.
Solid,
Steady,
Grounded.
Letting go of any effort to support yourself in this shape.
Relax and allow gravity to do the work.
Breathe into your belly.
Letting each inhale feel your body like a wave.
And each exhale gently softening muscular effort,
Surrendering into the support below.
If your mind wanders,
Bring it back to sensation.
The gentle tug opening up your pelvis.
The space being created in your belly and the front of your torso.
The lightness in your heart.
The stretch across the front of the thighs.
The subtle movement of your breath.
The stillness of being held.
As your body opens,
You may welcome a deeper backbend by lengthening your legs.
Gently sinking the mind down into the sensations in the body.
Finding your way home every time you become aware of distractions from your mind.
I will leave you here in stillness and let you know when it's time to move.
And taking your time,
Remove your support and make your way onto your back to rest and notice the effects of your body rebounding.
Reach your arms overhead and give your whole body a big stretch like you're just waking up.
As you exhale,
Relax.
On your next inhale,
Take another big stretch,
Reaching toes and fingers in opposite directions and contracting all of your muscles.
And relax as you exhale.
One more time.
Inhale,
Stretch,
Squeeze,
Even scrunching your face and holding your breath at the top of the inhale and letting it go with a big sighing breath out of your mouth.
And roll onto your side,
Lingering for a moment in a fetal curl.
And coming up onto all fours on your hands and knees on your mat.
Bring your right knee forward towards your right wrist,
Shin resting comfortably to come into swan.
Stretch your left leg back.
Use a prop under your right glute if your hips feel too unbalanced.
Lower yourself down into sleeping swan or sleeping pigeon.
Making a pillow with your hands or grabbing a prop to support your head.
Make any adjustments so the pose feels sustainable.
Sleeping swan is a strong hip opener.
So if it is a little too much today,
Just bend the back leg so both knees are bent,
Resting on the floor,
Perhaps placing a bolster under your belly.
And then allow yourself to settle into stillness here.
Feel the texture of sensation in your hips.
Breathe into those sensations with curiosity.
What are you holding onto that could gently be loosened?
Perhaps this is a reoccurring thought,
A worry,
Or a memory that is taking up too much space.
What would it feel like to create more space for yourself?
To be present.
To be nurtured.
To be supported by yourself.
As the mind unravels its grip on our habitual patterns of thinking,
More space becomes available for us to live in the present moment.
Come back to your anchors.
Breath,
Sensation,
And slowly moving into child's pose.
Taking any variation to rest and notice the rebound effect of the pose.
And coming back up onto all fours.
Bring your left knee forward towards your left wrist,
Coming into swan on the other side.
Notice any differences on this side of your body,
And make any adjustments to make the pose just right for you.
Allow yourself to settle into stillness here.
Anchoring awareness in your breath.
See if you can invite a longer out-breath.
Letting your exhale become slightly longer than your inhale.
Attention to the breath is all we need to do to practice mindfulness.
Anapanasati is simply the practice of observing the breath.
Let this breath energy spread through your entire being.
Let your breath relax your body and release the grip of the mind.
When your attention wanders and your mind drifts off,
Just notice and come back.
That is the practice.
Your breath is the anchor that keeps your ship from floating away.
A place to land when a wandering mind pulls us away from being present.
Keep coming back to your anchors.
Breath.
Sensation.
Slowly moving into balasana,
Taking any variation of child's pose.
To rest and notice the rebound effect of the pose.
Let's make our way to our final pose,
A wide leg forward fold.
Come to sit so you are facing the long edge of your mat and extend your legs wide,
Finding length in your spine and a forward tilt of your pelvis.
Sitting on a blanket may help to come into this shape with more ease.
Slowly begin to fold forward.
Find your edge.
Letting your head hang or rest on your forearms or supported with a prop.
Avoid going too deep too early.
You have time here to allow your body to open up without force.
If there's an uncomfortable contraction of the muscles in your legs or your arms aren't completely falling away from the shoulders,
Adjust your body in a way to make this a comfortable experience.
Feel your breath in the back body.
The space between the shoulder blades and the lower back.
Let the arriving sensations be your anchor to the present moment.
The sensations occurring in your body arise moment by moment.
They are not ideas conjured by the mind,
Disengaged from reality as it is in the eternal now.
The mind has a tendency to get lost in papancha,
What the Buddha called the thicket of thought,
Which is like a maze of rumination.
Sometimes it is pleasant,
Like a daydream,
But often it takes us on a whirlwind,
Downward spiral of disheartening thoughts that we tend to get lost in.
We practice anapanasati to become more skillful at getting out of our heads and into our bodies to be more fully present.
Enjoy the next minute or so of stillness and silence and slowly begin to come out of this shape.
You may wish to finish your practice in shavasana or a seated meditation.
Notice what's shifted.
Maybe your body feels softer.
Maybe your mind feels clearer.
Taking as long as you need to be still,
To rest,
To be with the reverberations of sensations in your body,
To notice your thoughts drifting and gently returning to the peaceful flow of breath moving through your body.
I will leave you here.
May you carry this sense of ease and awareness that you have cultivated with you as you move into the rest of your day.
The peace within my soul recognizes the peace within yours.
