This is a practice to make a little bit more space for yourself,
To practice setting boundaries,
To feel into a sense of spaciousness that you can inhabit.
You can do this sitting or standing and wherever you decide to be,
Make sure that you've got some space around you.
And start by pushing outwards with your hands,
So stretching the arms and the hands slowly and intentionally forwards,
Letting the eyes follow your hands,
Really stretching out through the hands as if you are pushing a wall in front of your way.
Then stretching the arms and the hands up towards the sky,
Again letting your eyes follow your hands,
Pushing the sky away,
Then extending the hands and the arms downwards as if you're going to push the floor further away from you,
And stretching the arms out to the sides,
And you can lean into one arm and then into the other,
To imagine pushing away a wall,
Making a bit more space.
You can also push both arms at the same time,
So you're feeling a lovely sense of widening your chest,
Noticing what happens to your breath,
And you can turn around to the left and stretch behind you with your left arm back,
Turning towards the right and stretching back with the right arm,
Really imagining as you're doing this,
You're expanding your personal space,
You're making more room for yourself in the world.
You can repeat this now in all the directions and feel in which directions you want to spend a little bit more time,
A little bit more stretching,
A little bit more pushing outwards.
As you stretch,
Feel the muscles in your arms activate,
Notice what happens in the rest of the body,
And let your breath move with you,
So you might experiment with using the breath to push,
And you can continue with this as long as feels good,
And you might finish by resting your hands on your chest or your belly,
Closing your eyes,
And letting yourself settle into this reclaimed space,
Sensing how it feels to inhabit this spaciousness that you've created,
Noticing if you can find a sense of spaciousness on the inside,
As well as around your body.
This is a great mini practice that you can come back to at any time during the day when you want to make a little bit more space,
Perhaps when your mind feels busy or cluttered with lots of thoughts,
When you're feeling your feelings intensely,
When there's just a little bit too much happening all around you,
Just remembering that you can come back to making space with your arms,
With your eyes,
With your attention.
