Hey everyone and welcome to day four of our 30-day yoga challenge.
My name is Candice and today's practice we are slowing things down for a nice and gentle restorative practice.
So get comfy clothes,
Grab a bolster or a long pillow or a rolled up blanket and we are going to start in a child's pose.
So grab what you need and meet me there.
Bring your big toes to touch,
Knees as wide as you want them.
Grabbing your bolster or pillow or blanket,
We're gonna bring it between the legs.
From there you can just gently walk.
Forward you might have to pull it in or bring it farther out you readjust how you want to And you can either rest your forehead down or you can turn and rest your cheek on the bolster.
Or pillow or blanket,
Whatever you have.
And take your arms in any position that feel comfortable.
I kind of like my elbows bent.
Feel the shoulders really melting forward.
Softening the jaw.
The tongue,
The forehead.
Making any little adjustments that you need to be comfortable if that means.
Pausing the video and grabbing a blanket to maybe place underneath of your feet or even between your.
.
.
How soft can you become?
Can you close the eyes and tune into the breath and allow the exhales to melt you onto your prop?
This supported variation of child's pose is one of my absolute favorite restorative postures.
Sometimes I'll even just get on my mat just to do this,
And that's my practice.
Funny how we think our practice needs to look a certain way.
But really just showing up in whatever way you need to on a day-to-day basis.
And sometimes that's not even on the mat at all.
But even just getting to your mat to grab a pillow or a bolster,
Just to lay on it for a few minutes of quiet,
Of stillness,
Of rest.
It doesn't always need to be a fiery movement practice.
Feel as you melt and soften a little bit more onto the bolster,
The breath can move into the back body just a little bit.
Feel the ribcage expanding into the side body,
The back body.
If you have one side of your face resting on the bolster,
You can switch and bring the opposite cheek down.
Every exhalation,
Feel your muscles soften.
Feel tension leaving the body.
Maybe doing a little bit of a scan from head to toe,
Notice areas of tension.
Consciously softening those spaces as you find them.
No control of the breath.
Just allow it to be what it is.
Just a couple more breaths here.
And it's no rush.
And we can slowly start to make our way up slowly and lazily press into the palms.
Peel yourself up.
We can set our prop off to the side for now.
Go ahead and climb forward onto the belly.
Take your time.
Extending the legs back behind you.
Take the legs wide,
As wide as is comfortable.
Stack the forearms in front of the face.
And rest the forehead down.
You might turn your toes out to the sides.
Maybe you kind of shift the hips from side to side to feel yourself really soften onto the belly.
And as your head rests on your arms,
Can you feel completely supported here?
Completely and utterly supported by the ground underneath of you.
Your head and neck supported by your arms.
Feel the belly pressing into the mat.
As you breathe,
Notice how that creates the sensation of the breath,
Creating space in the back body and the sides of the body.
Breath comes in,
Ribcage expands,
Opening,
Back body.
Exhales,
Feel yourself soften and melt and surrender.
To the mat a little bit more.
Feel completely and utterly supported and safe.
No effort.
Just rest.
A few more moments here.
And it's no rush whatsoever.
But when you feel ready,
We can slowly start to.
.
.
Press slide the hands beside you and Gently,
Lazily come up onto the knee.
And come through to a seat.
Grabbing.
Your bolster or blanket or pillow once again.
We're going to take the feet together,
Knees fall open,
But instead of bringing the heels close to us,
We're going to bring them out wide like a diamond shape.
And depending on the type of prop you have you might just kind of rest it in front of you so that you can bring your belly forward onto it,
Rest your forearms down.
If you do have a firmer bolster or pillow,
I like to do this.
I like to bring the edge of the bolster to my feet and rest my head onto it.
And then you can really just start to melt forward into the prop and let the arms just be heavy.
And if you have your prop laying down in front of you,
You can rest your elbows onto it and just kind of rest either your chin.
Into your hands.
It's okay for the spine to be rounded here.
Or you can even rest your forehead into your hands.
Or if you have the range of motion you might be able to come down more and rest your head down farther.
But with these restorative poses,
We're looking for a very mild sensation.
So you're not going to your deepest.
Pose that your body is capable of.
You're just looking for a mild sensation.
To create.
Nervous system relaxation.
Calming through the breath.
Softening the entire body as best you can here.
And again doing a little mental scan from.
.
.
The crown of the head.
Searching for areas of tension.
And as you find them,
You can compassionately and consciously soften.
Oh.
Just a few more moments here.
And not rushing your movements.
But slowly you can find yourself,
Peel yourself up off of your prop.
And we can gently set it aside for now.
Just find a comfortable seat for a moment.
I'll just turn and face you.
Taking the hands,
Either just resting on the knees or resting the fingertips beside you,
We're just going to gently drop left ear to left shoulder.
So again,
Just a mild sensation.
We're not looking for the deepest stretch,
The most intense stretch.
Next exhale,
Drop the chin towards the chest.
Keep the chest lifted slightly.
Inhale,
Bring the head up,
Drop right ear to right shoulder.
Just soft.
And then he'll bring the head back up and cross the legs.
We'll make our way down onto our backs.
So you can grab onto your legs and just slowly lower down.
Let's curl the knees in towards the chest.
Give yourself a little squeeze here.
Then dropping the feet down to the mat.
Keep the knees bent.
You can take the arms out to the sides.
We're going to slide the hips just slightly to the right.
Drop the knees over to the left for a twist.
So you can stay here with just the knees stacked.
Or if you want to grab your prop.
And slide it either underneath of the legs or between your legs Getting yourself.
As comfortable as possible here you can keep your gaze up towards the ceiling or the sky wherever you are you can take your gaze down the right fingertips softly looking over maybe you even close the eyes Breath is soft,
Every exhalation.
Feeling yourself melt and soften a little bit more.
Knowing that as we.
.
.
Settle into stillness in these poses that we hold for longer periods of time.
Perfectly normal for the thoughts in the mind to become even louder.
The distractions to start pouring in.
Anytime you notice yourself getting lost in thought,
You can.
.
.
Gently,
Compassionately guide yourself back.
To the breath,
Back to this moment,
Back to the sensations in your body.
Back to feeling the weight of the body on the floor.
The clothing on your skin.
Anything that grounds you in this moment,
You can bring your awareness there.
Whenever distractions inevitably pull you away,
You can use that anchor to ground yourself back.
Take two more breaths here.
And then softly.
You can keep your prop between your legs if you have it there.
Just bringing the knees back up to center for a moment.
And we can slide the hips softly over to the left.
Dropping the knees over to the right,
Readjusting yourself so you're comfortable.
And let your head fall to the left.
Soft breath.
Soft muscle.
Feel the bones heavy.
Distractions will be there,
But how can we work to ground back in the present moment?
Back into your body.
It's no rush at all.
Slowly start to bring the knees back up to center.
Slide the hips back to center.
You can remove your prop.
And we're just going to extend the legs out in front,
Taking our Shavasana.
So if you want to have the legs straight out in front,
Or if you want to slide your prop underneath of the knees.
Taking any position that works for your body right now.
Let the arms come beside you,
Fingertips naturally curling in towards the palms.
Eyes are closed or the gaze is soft.
Breath is soft.
Allow yourself to be completely and utterly supported here.
The space that you have given yourself with nowhere to be and nothing to do.
And I'm going to end this practice here.
I invite you to stay as long as you have time for.
And thank you once again for joining me in practice,
And we will see you again tomorrow.
